Story Reader / Interlude / Song of Flowers / Story

Dear Selena, I've got another good news.

My play is almost finished, ready for rehearsal.

I've also got some bad news.

I can't complete it yet. There is a haze before me, one that I can't cross alone.

Unlike the writer's block I had, the harder I tried this time, the more confused the path ahead was.

So... I've asked Chairman Allen for help, hoping he can offer me some guidance.

How would you feel if you had the chance to see this performance that's based on your story?

What were you thinking... when you took that probe before the Gray Raven Commandant?

Were you thinking about what you used to say to your mom?

Sacrifices shouldn't just inflict pain. They should inspire bravery... and invoke hope of the calm after the storm.

Selena Florance, my dearest friend.

Tell me, please. Answer me.

Answer me with your beautiful voice and sing.

In the expansive opera hall, one gentleman sits alone, listening to her going through the script in her hand.

Letters. Not very common nowadays, aren't they? Are they your source of inspiration?

Well, bravo! Remarkable work for someone new to the art form.

A young opera composer meets a group of art-loving kindred spirits on her way to search for a girl, ending up saved by her past self.

Journeys of self-discovery aren't uncommon in operas, but it is refreshing to see yours presented this way.

Only you can come up with ideas like that, Ayla.

Sure, your writing on the children might be a little too assuming, but that's nothing new for young writers.

Probably just your first instinct when you were writing, and you didn't realize it. Mark it down, and make sure you don't make the same mistake twice when you go through your draft again.

But... before I say anything, I must ask you if that's all you want, Ayla? You asked me to listen to your new play just to get my suggestions on changes to make?

That person is lying in her chamber, her hands crossing and resting above her abdomen. Her eyes are lightly shut, the corners of her lips slightly raised, her long hair draping by her sides.

But she knows that person is not here now.

Did you bring it here because you have a new idea for a coating?

She's here... just because... because...

—I just wanted her to be able to see this.

They said it wasn't like you, but I think you've just been focusing all your infectious passion on one thing.

That thing being this "Song of Flowers" you just read, isn't it?

It is a face of affection and regret.

But that's not what I meant.

Allen, with all he has seen and done, is still slightly taken aback when he first hears it.

The tone ebbs and flows as it rises higher. Suddenly, a vast ocean seems to appear before his very eyes.

The female singer is not fully imitating the sound of a real whale, but she conveys the same expression in the melody.

—A lonely blue whale is swinging its tail fin and cruising in the sea. Again and again it sings, its song echoing throughout the ocean depths, but there is no response.

The singing stopped. The song has no end, and the lonely blue whale did not find its kind.

Taking a few moments, Allen remembers where he has heard this aria before.

She said that she hadn't thought of an ending yet because she hasn't seen the ocean with her own eyes.

She'd write the second half after she'd seen the real ocean.

...Just like this.

The tone also rises, but the direction the whale is heading has changed.

Ayla is not a skilled singer, but even her simple delivery has revealed to Allen the meaning behind the melody.

—The lonely blue whale is heading deeper into the ocean. It is still singing, and its voice would have formed a cage around it as it echoes more frequently in the narrow trench.

But the cage never forms. Instead, the further it dives into the trench, the more faded its voice is, its echo nowhere to be found.

Almost as if the whale is not diving into the ocean trench but a broader... universe.

It can no longer find its tribe, its kind, or even life.

And the whale is eventually torn apart by the gravity of the void. Its voice gradually fades until its last wail is silent.

The song ends. Ayla stops singing.

She gives Allen a brief moment to savor the aria before speaking again.

Ayla does not continue his sentence as well. She keeps on going.

A long time after that, Babylonia's sonar detected a surprising recording. After checking, its sound wave closely resembles Siren's song.

A... friend from the Task Force told me about that. I pulled some strings, hoping to get ahold of the recording... but what I got was an audio file with white noise and disordered sounds.

But I had a feeling I know who sang that response.

I repaired the audio file. It's a skill every member of the Archaeological Team knows.

This song was what it ended up being.

For one thing, sonic waves decay, causing discrepancies in tracking. Our radar can only point at a general location. Secondly, it took time for the song to reach us. By the time we received the file, the singer could be long gone.

We can't trace it, But I can't help but wonder who the singer might be. Did our receiver mistake white noise for a whale song? Was it an unknown machine playing music randomly? Or... was it a lament from a lonely blue whale left behind on Earth?

The technicians gave me different theories, but I only believed in one of them.

It was because I wanted the whale song to continue. I want to use that song from Earth to make sure her voice doesn't end.

Did she meet someone kind or dangerous? Would she encounter threatening tempests?

Did she see the turfy mountains where the sheep nibbled? The banks with pioned and twilled brims? The... rainbow across the sky after the tempests?

I put all these imaginations and sceneries along her journey into the Capriccio frame.

If the person in my story walks the same path and meets the same people as the wanderer on the surface...

Then, when she comes back, she will know that there has always been another whale song from Capriccio following her.

She will know that someone out there in the stars has been humming her whale song, wishing her the best on the planet she loves so much.

In the years to come, she will realize her journey wasn't alone when she looks back.

She might chuckle, teasing me about how the character arcs of my story are wrong while we modify her frame together.

I couldn't save her a few years ago. I can't find the whereabouts of that whale song now. The least I can do is give her a pleasant future.

She gave me a soul with her Hamlet. This fragment of her soul has comforted me, so I must repay this kindness.

You visited a few people who knew her during your time away from the saloon. I guessed that when you came to me with all your questions a few days ago.

Her mind is so... alive. To recover her work, I had to find others to talk about what she was thinking back then.

I was just surprised to find that commandant to be one of the people who knew her well... Oh, that's a secret. You didn't hear that.

Regardless, I thought I knew her, but knowing the journey she has traveled now, I just... want to hold her and tell her how I feel.

I want to tell her that the opera she wrote is still well-loved. Many people l longing for the day it appears on the stage again. It's still the pride of her mother... and me.

I want to tell her how many people are listening to the operas she recovered.

I want to tell her that... the song she sang in that lonely space station has been found...

I want to tell her I saw her pain and her strength... I saw her spirit quaking inside the tempest, bent but not broken.

But she wasn't here... What else could I do?

I... had to put them into this story!

I started writing "Song of Flowers" when the signal of the whale song started heading toward the ruins of the Great Evacuation site.

I came up with a story based on what happened when she was young, using conservation area 184 as a stage... But this time, I let her become a character in her own story as well.

A person in high places, he joined the fight after being inspired by art... until his honorable death on the field. What happened to him might have greatly affected his daughter, but it took a much bigger toll on his wife.

But Mrs. Florance stopped visiting counselors one day while still recovering pretty well afterward. The first time I saw her, she was with someone accepting, and her daughter was singing a lullaby with her. There was only love in her gaze.

She worked hard for all of it.

She talked to her mother for a very long time after that. I don't know what she said that changed her mother's mind, but she was allowed to study operas after that.

One day, she "ran away" to this very theater. When her mother found her, she was performing Mr. Florance's last work as a one-person performance.

It wasn't the first time she "ran away," but that was the only time she had the courage and the words to face her mother's pain.

She said it was thanks to someone who found her performing alone during one of her escapes and offered her guidance.

I don't know who he or she was... but if that person could see this performance, I hope the story will serve as my thanks.

Even with all the talented people I've seen, he is still second to none. The operas he wrote have inspired many writers in WGAA, including her.

I was surprised to find a famous playwright from the Golden Age buried in the army—wait, no. He stressed to me quite a few times that he wasn't "buried." This was his choice.

It took me some effort to find him and tell him this story... and he agreed to help me with my script after seeing Selena's. I couldn't have finished this without his help.

Ayla has been like a feral rabbit jumping around since Allen came here to listen to her story. She moves on from topic to topic, and he has acted like a patient guide, following and responding but never stopping her in her way.

But now, this guide has stepped ahead of the rabbit and planted a fence before her, stopping her from avoiding her past.

But then, it wasn't hard to tell. I thought she was the protagonist of this story in the beginning, but there was a lack of her self-reflection in it. On the other hand, Pieter's role was very much highlighted.

It wasn't a wrong arrangement, per se, but it didn't feel like what a new writer like you would do.

I didn't think I'd feel this way, but the first time I tried to write a story like that, I was drowned in that feeling.

She would have called it...

Not that I never struggled to pick up my pen, but I never thought I would be a stranger to my canvas and my script. I can't even imagine what this painting and this play will look like when it's complete.

I wondered many times what happened to her on the premiere of "The Acadia Evacuation" that put her on the battlefield.

In the end, I attributed it to "pride"... That's my guess.

But is that the truth? Their stories and their insights... have I understood them?

Or have I twisted them so that I get the ending I wanted?

Every time I step before my canvas, my head is filled with all these doubts.

I started to lose sight of what her character would think in my story.

So I avoided writing what she thought and just had her push the plot forward blindly.

I wanted to ask Mr. Pieter for help, but I just found out that his transmission was lost near a conservation area... It was conservation area 184, near the evacuation site, where the whale song was last heard.

I was even more lost after I heard the news.

To be honest, I haven't made any changes since I wrote this ending. I've been trapped by this feeling for days.

I can't take this... motionlessness anymore. All my muses will be gone if I don't talk to somebody.

So say something, Chairman. I'm sick of drowning in this still water.

And Allen already has an answer.

Neither Flora, her father, Pieter, nor she was aware of the whole truth in your story. But they weren't motivated by truth.

They each set off on their path because they were inspired when they were moved by the stories they heard. Stories written by someone else.

That was their motivation. That was what drove their actions, am I right?

That was why you started writing this story, wasn't it?

You've walked her path, and you've looked into her bountiful heart. You know what kind of pressure made her lose her way, and you know how she held on when she was lost.

You said you had her push the plot forward blindly? No. You've made her come to life.

If this is just a story with a happy ending, then it would have ended with the two Constructs entering the theater and saving Flora.

But you had Flora opposing her future self, inspiring and freeing each other. I think she would have chosen the same if she saw her past self as well.

Perhaps a story where a person's past and future selves meet won't happen in real life, but you have given each of your characters a soul, and they have all expressed themselves to the fullest.

Maybe you didn't create her completely. But then, you know full well that the complete her doesn't belong in a story.

This is enough. If they can express how you feel, that is enough.

I think she would say the same if she were here.

You already created the work you wanted to make, Ayla.

Please excuse me for a second, Chairman.

The "excuse me" is not just because Ayla needs to stop the conversation. She also needs to create the right environment.

Ayla stands in the middle of the spotlight as if she is the source of light.

Ayla is always good at turning strange environments into her working space. Right now, the single ray of the spotlight in the dark has provided her with a small studio for her to think.

Ayla would probably feel too embarrassed to do this if someone else was in the audience. The sudden darkness can be, after all, quite uncomfortable.

But Allen seems to be used to Ayla doing this by now. He looks pleased instead of dismayed as he watches the rabbit standing inside the spotlight, her head raised.

Once, Ayla would see that starry night and find it boring.

Those stars are so far away. Only one can actually reach her, and who knows how long ago its light started traveling.

The stars burn themselves so brightly, casting their photons into space in all directions.

The photons travel far and long, sailing forward in the cold for ages until they hit a surface, imprinting the brief image of their stars before getting reflected and scattered. By then, those stars might already have burnt out and died.

Would the stars have expected a response for their light? Is a response even possible?

Right now, looking at the countless, lonely stars out there, Ayla suddenly feels a sense of gratitude.

Unlike them, the light she casts is so much closer to her, almost reachable.

That light is cast on the blue planet below her, and she is gently singing.

Ayla has created this story. It focuses all her inspiration and gives life to the girl in her story.

Ayla's starlight and her longing have been cast on Earth. One day, they will reach the girl.

How long will that take? A day? A month? Years? Ayla does not know. Her light does not have to travel lightyears, but it has to traverse uncertainty.

Thinking about that, Ayla raises her hands. The studio terminal awakes once more, opening a holographic display before her under her commands.

She swipes across the display, hoping to open the map with the trails of the whale song. Instead, a photo of a smiling girl standing among bushes of flowers appears before Ayla.

The girl among the flowers smiles at Ayla.

The same way the girl smiled when she left Ayla.

This is an imprint of the moment before the girl left. Ayla takes its light and reflects it back to Earth.

When will the slow-walking, quietly-humming star see her light?

When that happens... will these two stars that have illuminated each other look the same?

—As long as we keep looking, the light of our art still travels across the universe... Then one day we will meet.

—For a second, the lines Ayla wrote echo within her.

Why? She wrote those words, but why does she only understand them now?

The gaze that travels between the display and the starry night lands on the sleeping girl in the chamber unintentionally.

They were the girl's words, written through Ayla from a memory.

Ayla's fingers linger on the terminal, touching her painting. For a brief moment there, her hand seems to travel through the canvas and reaches the field of flowers thousands of miles away.

—If she cannot tell how far it is, then she will keep shining until her light reaches the girl's eyes.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Ayla takes a deep breath again and raises her hand.

I'm feeling much better.

How do the folks in the saloon say it... "This is the smile of the blunt, unclouded Ayla, who puts all of herself on her canvas!"

I'll visit the saloon after I'm done polishing this script. Please send them my regards when you visit them.

Oh, hold on, I got it. Need to do it more cleverly...

Ah-ha! An idea just hit me, Chairman. I've got to go! Thanks for your help. I still need to work on the frame later, so I'll just put it here for now!

Seeing the rabbit-like figure leaving, Allen turns his gaze back to the stage.

I wonder what you would think when you see them after you sent me on this path, Mr. Florance?