Music is my anti-drug

@"Der Lampman"

Iliril of the Chant

Iliril was actually off campus for once. He was still trying to decide how exactly he felt about that but his sentiments seemed to be overwhelmingly in favor of being frozen in a deep state of shock and fear. He was already regretting everything done that day but there was just no helping it. A teacher that he had met early while lingering around the music department (one with blue hair? The man had been unusually short, too, to the point where Iliril had mistaken him for a young child) had told him to 'dress like a normal person for once,' which he had taken to mean 'take off the damn horns you idiot.' It was in his closet, so he had just opted to wear the academy's standard uniform. It was less work. It was also kind of itchy and he was trying not to fiddle with the cloth too much.

Then the teacher had brought him all the way out to the downtown area before simply leaving him there. For his own good, the Chants mage had been told. He would be picked up in a few hours, if he didn't manage to make his way back on his own.

A few hours. A few hours surrounded by technology. Iliril was still convinced that was a weird way of saying magic that people didn't consider magic for some reason.

There did seem to be a few music shops around where he had been left, at least. That teacher had made good on that promise. He still felt terrified, though, like he didn't belong. But looking through the windows, he could see so many instruments. Iliril sulked in the shadows for who knew how long, viciously debating with himself. On one hand, he didn't really want to be there. On the other hand, music.

That was his ultimate weak point, really, so after maybe a half an hour of pointless struggling, he gave up and zeroed in on a smaller shop that seemed more tucked away than the rest. Nervously, he pushed the door open and went inside.

Iliril of the Chant

The sound of an unfamiliar instrument filled his ears the moment he stepped inside the shop. It wasn't woodwinds, that was for certain, but it also didn't sound too much like the stringed instruments he was used to. Frowning slightly in thought as he tried to place it with the usual instruments at Sard, Iliril kept to the walls, well away from the other people.

There was a girl playing some sort of large instrument with a shiny black exterior. The way she played it reminded the mage of zithers but as he approached carefully, there wasn't a single string to be seen. Her fingers kept hitting a row of black and white rectangles. A hammered dulcimer, then? It seemed about right but it was definitely the largest one Iliril had ever seen.

He was staring. There were some other people who were, too, but it seemed like she had been playing long enough that people were mostly listening in to fill the time before moving on to other things. The shop had other instruments, of course, but Iliril really wanted to know how this one worked.

It looked like there were levers to help the sound come across? He watched the girl's feet until he figured it out. One of the levers seemed to make vibrato and the other created a staccato effect. He still had absolutely no idea what the third one did, however. The actual strings were probably inside. By the shape of the instrument, Iliril guessed that it was kind of shaped like a harp, if somebody were to lie it down. Maybe this was just this world's version of a harp? But when he glanced to the side, he could see that there were plenty of normal harps around, too.

He edged a bit closer as people started to depart. It seemed like part of the instrument could be lifted up to see what was inside. Doing so while somebody was playing, however, was simply rude. He would just have to wait, however long it took. Only a deaf person, however, wouldn't have recognized just what kind of song was being played. It was a lonely sort of sound, the kind not often made for communal chants.

Really, Iliril could relate.

Without meaning to at all, he found himself next to one of the harps. It wasn't his instrument of choice but it was close enough to a zither that he had already studied it to some extent. Running a fingernail lightly over the strings, he first determined which strings were which notes. Then, with that done, he began to pluck out an accompaniment. It was almost an absent action, born out of months of not having really had an opportunity to produce anything at all.