The Song is Sung.
A typical night on the Orrery.
( Chastity, Coalesce, and Materi had a nice little dance the previous evening in the Forge, while Chastity was hyped up on some substances. )
Coalesce sidles up and sits near Chastity's feet. "No dancing tonight, hm?"
Xia smiles, and leans in to lick the back of Chastity's neck with her rough, feline-like tongue.
Chastity glances to Coalesce and starts to answer, the sudden lick taking him by surprise as his head arches back and he lets out a gasping purr. "Mmm...I'm game for dancing..."
Squizzle says, "Different dances for different people."
Coalesce says, "You certainly were enjoying the music last night. More so than most...must have been those substances? "
Chastity rubs his chin, "I was loving the visuals...I...don't particularly remember the music..."
Coalesce says, "Ahhh. Did you try the goggles, for the other spectrums? "
Xia has disconnected.
Chastity nods. "Those were the only thing I wore...They slipped off while I was sleeping."
Coalesce says, "I try not to attune to the particular electromagnetic flux band too often...it can be overwhelming. Especially here, or in the Forge. "
Chastity pauses softly, tilting his head..."Which particular electromagnetic flux band would that be?"
Coalesce says, "The default one I assume you were using in the goggles last night. Showing the field lines looping and interacting...it is an effect similar to your 'substances'. "
Chastity gives a subtle nod. "I was bordering on sensory overload...At one point I could barely stand, I remember that much..."
Materi nods, and smiles, remembering that. "I'm happy you enjoyed the show..."
Chastity slowly curls his lips to a grin, "I'm happy you two were dancing..."
Coalesce says, "The music there is infectuous. But...in a different way. "
Xia is automatically deleted to free up local space.
Xia has left.
Chastity tilts his head..."Infectious?" The dragon runs a hand through his mane, rubbing the dome of his head, "Unfortunately, I can't pass judgment. I was just on too many substances to be thinking logically the other night."
Coalesce gets a ridged ripplespike down the back of his psuedospine, jagged like an aural sinewave, traveling down and vanishing along his tail.
Coalesce says, "Music...any music can infect you. The Forge infects one to dance, to interact with and create the music itself. "
Chastity slowly reaches beneath his skirt, pulling out his normal flask of absinthe. The dragon takes a sip of that, licking his lips afterwards, "I need to go there again..."
Coalesce says, "Some songs are....more than songs. A song can be...a weapon. Or a virus. Or a being..."
Chastity grins very softly, taking another sip. "I've heard of such uses...It takes refined speakers for the proper sound quality..."
Coalesce says, "The problem is, variants of that type of song can make other beings into speakers for it. "
Chastity's eyes perk and he screws the flask shut, leaning in..."Now you've caught my ear..." he says as a finger pulls his headphones down, neo-gothic sounds pumping softly from them for the extremely discerning ear.
Coalesce gets another spiky ripple along his arm, out to his fingertips which deform into spherical globes before returning to normal.
Coalesce glances at his offending arm sharply, and gives a voluntary whole-body shudder.
Materi watches Coalesce cautiously. "For those of us who could LITERALLY become speakers.. Broadcast it across the whole Mess... It's a bit of a disconcerting thought.
Squizzle glances about. "Excuse me..."
Squizzle disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Squizzle has left.
Chastity watches the arm quietly, his head cocking...As a sound technician, the dragon's much more fascinated than worried. "Arm acting up?"
Coalesce says, "Well. The songvirus I mentioned...I've got one. "
Chastity's tail flicks. "Really? What has it inflicted upon you, if I may ask?"
Coalesce says, "I've been resisting it. Caught it from...somewhere, had to reboot entirely and erase it from my memory...which left me no defense when I caught it again, since I didn't know what it sounded like ."
Twin says, "How does it go?"
Chastity glances to Twin, blinking. "Doesn't answering that question risk infect anyone who can hear it...?"
Twin smiles. "Yes. So?"
Materi says, "We've been trying to contain the... infection. Though I must admit I'm a bit curious myself..."
Coalesce says, "you....want me to sing it? "
Twin says, "Sure. Let's jam around it! Find out what it *does*."
Twin grins. "Is it pretty?"
Coalesce says, "It...can be. I've spent so long trying to ignore it..."
Chastity licks his lips...He opens his shirt and pulls out his floppy, disk shaped music player. The dragon flattens it out and points one of the data ports towards Coalesce, "Perhaps you could load it into this, and then we could analyze it somewhere else?"
Coalesce says, "I....don't know how safe it is. "
Coalesce says, "Can you analyze it without listening? The infection might not spread through diagrams. "
Twin shrugs. "So we all get a memory wipe of the past few minutes if bad things happen?"
Chastity nods softly, swaying his tail. "Spectrograph analysis and such, of course..."
Twin calls on the infosystems, and instantiates pills. "Ten-minute short-term-memory wipe," (she) says, offering. "And I/singularity will pull back my senses from my mass self."
Coalesce ripples again, another waveform spike traveling across his chest and one leg. "It...has been clamoring for a concert...
Materi hms. "Not sure the pills can work for me, but... Ah. I know."
Materi breaks apart into the silver globules, again, then they all drift in two directions, one set heading quickly down the hole while the other forms back into realistic shape.
Materi says, "I'm totally disconnected from the other copy now. I'll just.. well.. delete, if the rest of you take the pills. It's pretty much equivalent."
Coalesce looks concerned. "You would be willing to risk infection?"
Twin smiles. "And if it goes awry, then, well, I'll just filter my own memories."
Materi says, "I'm a restricted subset. The rest is well out of listening range."
Coalesce hmms. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before."
Chastity sways his tail, remaining quiet for a moment. "What does it even do...?"
Coalesce says, "I....haven't let it get that far yet. It wants to infect minds. I was not allowing it. It's why I...spend a lot of time in the Forge, trying to distract myself from the tune. "
Chastity nods softly. "I see..."
Coalesce quivers, his feet thumping on the ground to some beat. "It's coming loose....prepare to record...or delete..."
Chastity pauses...The dragon lifts up the music player and quickly cycles on the touch screen through a few buttons. He holds one hand with it out, ready to hit the proper button...Incidentally, his headphones remain off his earholes.
Twin flickers cool colors on Coalesce's beat.
Materi watches, cautious...
Coalesce extrudes more spikeshapes that pulse with internal energy, then become audible. Complex chords overlap into a wash of soundscape.
Materi picks up the rhythm, body losing cohesion, rippling with the sounds, soon joining in, as if ve already knows the tune...
Coalesce sounds out minor chords sliding into eerie frequencies, the music forming a backbeat in the lower ranges and some that are only felt. His substance thumps on the surface of the sunsphere while other parts tune into spheres for different sounds.
Twin listens, and begins soft polyphony, playing with the themes, twisting them around and upside down.
Coalesce chants in line with the generated beat, softly at first in minor keys. "A laya laya, lola lo lai."
Chastity's head slowly bobs along, the dragon's eyes closing as he hears the song...His body starts to shiver a little with the sound, a hand sliding over part of his covered chest as he licks his lips. "Oooh..."
Materi loses more and more form, but starts to move more and more with the music, tendrils of nanostuff starting to curl around the other three, colors changing as rainbow sine waves through the form...
Coalesce says, "Orou la ala, hom ouw a maya yai. Fona raja solo mana sai."
Chastity takes deep breaths, slumping back onto his tailbase..."Oh...this...is perfect sound..."
Coalesce drums out the rhythm that is still methodical and deliberate. Parts of him weave around in circles, vibrations traveling along them into the sphere-speakers.
Coalesce says, "Musha resha noneh whai..."
Twin sings along, fractional-seconds behind.
Twin pirouettes and dances, starting to express the theme in motion...
Coalesce trills, "Ai, ai, laya laya ai.", and echoes himself in a higher octave at the same time, "hona hona hona hona..."
Twin o/" Ai, ai, laya laya ai. o/"
Chastity lifts up one of his headphone speakers to an earhole...He taps a few buttons on his player, listening to the two voices, and then to the extra speaker as the device records...
Materi's part seems to have been set as audiovisual accompaniment, rather than voice, especially since ve doesn't have much of anything like a mouth anymore anyway. The form spreads out, sheets of light and sound now, playing out a mix of natural- and artificial-sounding instrument voices.
Coalesce sings, "Aya kola matah owah vey," a bit louder, with a slight vibrato at the upward notes.
Chastity's eyes dance over Coalesce and Materi, the dragon purring heavily with the mix of sounds as his tail sways...
Twin chimes in, a fluttering chorus of voices, on the choral responses: "Soma soma soma soma..." (she) chants, tranquil colors cycling through (her) body.
Coalesce pumps out the sounds, echoing across the Park and seeming to make the struts of the Orrery even vibrate.
Coalesce says, "Reshi lona matah nira. (polo polo polo polo) Laya laya ranai shome (orou orou orou orou)..."
Materi's haze takes on a bit more structure, but it's as mysterious as anything else.. Vague humanoid forms, now, moving to the song..
Coalesce swings the beat slightly faster, the bass harmonics changing subtly to a different key. Alternating clicks and inorganic sounds erupt from the larger emitting spheres. Harsh chords from distorted strings change the mood of the song abruptly.
Ake climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Ake has arrived.
Twin bows deeply to Ake amidst (her) dance and song. (OOC: Y'know that song virus Coalesce keeps going on about? We're letting it out.)
Coalesce emits, somewhat differently voices, "Gatoch mokru sacri angsto..."
Ake sags achingly against the tree, rubs at his sore joints and gawks at the show.
Chastity's body arches as he hears the change in cords, his wings flicking as he licks his lips. "Aaah..."
[OOC] Coalesce has also turned into a speaker/instrument array and is playing himself...
Upon Materi's 'screen', the forms seem to be gathering, each one singing a part of the song. A circle of them... then... nested circles... all singing toward the middle.
Twin continues, high and pure and tight and luminous: o/" Qurtchi lakto Xorma Julen o/"
Chastity's eyes dance over Materi's screen...He's possibly the only one not singing, and there's a natural cause for why he never sings above a mumble. However, he hangs raptly on every note...
Coalesce chants faster, slinging words as if bullets. "Matakgh yulur hatchu bores. Nonest kraken deste vira holwen maja tezy grashtaa...." The last word nearly a shriek, catching a note and holding it while the various thrumming chords halt for mere seconds...tendrils of plasm arcing upward in mirror to the sound, before crashing down into tangled nested beatloops and percussion.
Ake sighs and lets the music sink into his conscious mind and ailing body, and deep into the distant, disintigrating whorls of his god-id.
Twin shouts, with a clap of thunder, almost, "Ratasha."
Coalesce replies in turn, "Matanah!"
Chastity collapses backwards as he watches, the recorder still held up eagerly as he listens to all the voices and watches all the visuals, his mind wrapping itself in the beats, harmonies, and melodies.
The circles turn away, disperse... Each one then forming another circle of singers around itself. The view spreads, pulls away, showing the sketchy scene from farther and farther vantage points...
Coalesce's tendrils curve up and over, overlapping in a weaving dance around a spherical center, as if preparing a space for something within. The outlying sound generators still pace the beat and volume, carefully adding back in the tonal elements introduced at the beginning.
Twin turns loops and twists in the air through the rings of Orrey, whispering faintly, singing pure sinewave whalesong starsong beneath the words of songvirus.
Coalesce cascades back into a refrain. "A laya laya, krodo molu eh. Lam ba culiera som..."
Squizzle climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Squizzle has arrived.
Squizzle says, "Hello again, everyone."
[OOC] Materi says, "Okay, we need a 'viral meme performance art' warning sign to hang over the hole, clearly. ;o)"
[OOC] Coalesce grins. Notes to Squizzle, that songvirus is being let loose.
[OOC] Twin says, "Coalesce is Singing That Song He Caught. Lyrics in his LJ if you care to catch it."
[OOC] Chastity is starting to run out of time, unfortunately...
Coalesce curves looping lines around a hole in his center, folding over and inward as if following lines of magflux.
Ake leans back limply against the tree. His jaw goes slack, his eyes cross and their swirling glow seems to intensify, and a tear rolls down one of his dull blue cheeks.
Ake's breathing is labored. "What...is sat...song?"
The dispersed sheets of Materi-fog pict out the spread, the song seeming to infect diverse new forms, each singer gathering a group of figures of all colors, shapes, and even styles. Cave paintings, petroglyphs, aboriginal bark carvings... circuit diagrams... they all join the song.
Twin pauses in (her) gleeful acceptance of possible infection and looks Ake over. "It's... viral, Ake... should you be listening, falling apart as you are?"
Ake pulls his knees to his chest and sobs involuntarily. "Idanno..."
Squizzle hops (and climbs, if necessary) over beside Ake. "A tune? A project? A battle in the art war?"
Squizzle says, "A mind? A machine? Quite possibly someone's idea of a joke?"
Coalesce spins out a spiraling web of words, pulses of bass and treble flowing into each other, synthetic string and reeds pulling up and down swathes of cold hard sound to back the words. "Nifti rala fenri souto....Canci gulagh orou sashti rey...
Ake's begins mouthing the words to the song, chokingly, reluctantly, not audible yet.
Chastity licks his lips as he dutifully records every note...More than happily accepting the infection, the dragon plans on testing his mixing abilities to the fullest extent with this piece of music.
"quaAAAAANtaaAAAAAAAA!" Twin chants in a vast chorus of voices, masculine, feminine, young, old, clicked, belched, sung...
Suddenly all the forms turn, as one, and head back to the 'center', the area between where Coalesce and Chastity and Twin are all standing.. They gather, again, like the first, encircling, packing in, all gathered and mixed and singing their parts... And in the center, there's... something new...
Ake weakly pulls himself forward onto hands and knees, tracing patterns with long thin fingers on the faintly glowing sun-stage beneath him, still mumbling the song...
Coalesce's spherical center coils around itself, swelling. A sharp tinge of ozone carries in the air, a flickering pulse in tune with the flowing music becoming audibly visible.
Twin reaches out with a subtle shift of gravity, lightening the local pull on Ake some. Humming little variations on the music in the brief break--
Chastity's form starts to slump over...While the dragon can't sustain consciousness for the moment, his recorder can stay up much longer than he can...With a few taps on its screen, he also sets it up to play the song over...and over...and over as he sleeps.
Coalesce croons the background of a full orchestral swell of the musical ocean, his sphere-cage bending outward with a smooth chant of light in the center.
The scene focuses on the center, but gives a few of some of the assembled too, light lines seeming to flow from them to the new feature, giving it strength, making it grow.. The center becomes ever more complex, ever more indescribable, ever more beautiful.
Chastity has disconnected.
Ake looks up at Coalesce for a brief moment. "Mishnu...verni...yuina?" He collapses.
Coalesce sweeps forward with the beat and it becomes stronger, the center holds, pressing outward, receiving inward the lightlines from Materi's projections.
Coalesce's excitation translates into the last words....
Coalesce chants "Mishnu verni
Coalesce chants "yuina quiveh
Coalesce chants "krala uver
Coalesce chants "jakah kola
Coalesce chants "trulni ada gropha
Coalesce chants "lio crawo rachta molaki
Coalesce chants "ka ni a broctu hohna freshnu
Coalesce chants "hora mahni polu lara naima a krie
Coalesce chants "de noray wa frumus grabuska krani
Coalesce chants "mochta ou ne ra...
Twin draws in a deep breath, preparing to let out a long exhalation in concert with, and spits it out in a scream instead: "AKE!" (She) darts to his side in a blur, hands centimeters above him, not quite sure if (she) should touch, probing as delicately as (she) cna with fine ripples of space, wide spectra of vision, anything (she) can use to find out if the tengu is alive...
The light sphere swells....crumbles. Ragged around edges, tearing into shreds.
Ake breathes shallowly, eyes half-open but not really seeing anything.
The new form blossoms, pulling in all of Materi's dispersed cloud, becoming three-dimensional, adding complexity and detail even as it totally fails to look like anything recognizable. it swells, tracings and tendrils and crystals amd maybe even limbs showing and dissapearing and shedding and gathering.. It raises up at the climax of the song, and... disperses, still beautifully, seeming not to dissapear into the air but become part of it.
Coalesce's form melts around the dispersal of the lightform, dipping back into himself and gathering the instrument spheres together.
Twin says, "...Up. They all say that Up is where the best care for sentients is. But I know his condition's as much magical as physical and where are there shamen, where are there mages? Oh I don't KNOW..."
The accompaniment fades now, and with it much of the urge, the sing reaching a stopping point... or perhaps just an extended rest.
Materi climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Materi has arrived.
Materi looks around.. Seems silent now, at least. "So... what'd I miss?"
Twin's collar flickers lights as (she) lifts Ake up without touching him, gentle hands of gravity lifting the tengu. "We can analyze the song later. Ake's dying, I think."
Twin offers to let Ake walk along with (her).
Coalesce gathers up into a low, flattened ball. All of his substance reformed now, the light vanished into nothingness...or substance.
Ake decides to walk along with Twin.
Ake sighs, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his beak.
Twin says, "Materi. Bring Coalesce if he's conscious. Oh, I had to wipe it all, just in case. Just a faint memory."
Twin disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Twin has left.
Ake has left.
Twin leaves, with Ake walking along with (her).
Coalesce emits a low groan, rippling slightly.
You whisper, "I'd like to follow along, want to carry?" to Materi.
Materi shudders lightly, eyes widening as ve becomes aware of something not entirely apparent to the others. Then, ve winces, glancing over at Ake. "...Oh. Right."
Squizzle blinks a few times. "Whanah... what's going on?"
Squizzle disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Materi walks along, with you following ver.
End of Part 1
Notes from here, character-wise. I'm open to interactions with the songvirus for anyone, at this point, even if perhaps non-con IC. Coal was very apprehensive about letting it out, but now he's likely to want to spread it farther. Or it's just gotten a deeper hold on his mind. Either way, I'd like to do more collaborative stuff. Those in attendance likely have been 'infected' and Chastity recorded the music as well. :-}
Future plans are going to be interesting, but the idea is to gather more people in a concert setting and have them all singing. Something new will emerge, foreshadowed by Materi's images and the lightspark of Coal's.
( Chastity, Coalesce, and Materi had a nice little dance the previous evening in the Forge, while Chastity was hyped up on some substances. )
Coalesce sidles up and sits near Chastity's feet. "No dancing tonight, hm?"
Xia smiles, and leans in to lick the back of Chastity's neck with her rough, feline-like tongue.
Chastity glances to Coalesce and starts to answer, the sudden lick taking him by surprise as his head arches back and he lets out a gasping purr. "Mmm...I'm game for dancing..."
Squizzle says, "Different dances for different people."
Coalesce says, "You certainly were enjoying the music last night. More so than most...must have been those substances? "
Chastity rubs his chin, "I was loving the visuals...I...don't particularly remember the music..."
Coalesce says, "Ahhh. Did you try the goggles, for the other spectrums? "
Xia has disconnected.
Chastity nods. "Those were the only thing I wore...They slipped off while I was sleeping."
Coalesce says, "I try not to attune to the particular electromagnetic flux band too often...it can be overwhelming. Especially here, or in the Forge. "
Chastity pauses softly, tilting his head..."Which particular electromagnetic flux band would that be?"
Coalesce says, "The default one I assume you were using in the goggles last night. Showing the field lines looping and interacting...it is an effect similar to your 'substances'. "
Chastity gives a subtle nod. "I was bordering on sensory overload...At one point I could barely stand, I remember that much..."
Materi nods, and smiles, remembering that. "I'm happy you enjoyed the show..."
Chastity slowly curls his lips to a grin, "I'm happy you two were dancing..."
Coalesce says, "The music there is infectuous. But...in a different way. "
Xia is automatically deleted to free up local space.
Xia has left.
Chastity tilts his head..."Infectious?" The dragon runs a hand through his mane, rubbing the dome of his head, "Unfortunately, I can't pass judgment. I was just on too many substances to be thinking logically the other night."
Coalesce gets a ridged ripplespike down the back of his psuedospine, jagged like an aural sinewave, traveling down and vanishing along his tail.
Coalesce says, "Music...any music can infect you. The Forge infects one to dance, to interact with and create the music itself. "
Chastity slowly reaches beneath his skirt, pulling out his normal flask of absinthe. The dragon takes a sip of that, licking his lips afterwards, "I need to go there again..."
Coalesce says, "Some songs are....more than songs. A song can be...a weapon. Or a virus. Or a being..."
Chastity grins very softly, taking another sip. "I've heard of such uses...It takes refined speakers for the proper sound quality..."
Coalesce says, "The problem is, variants of that type of song can make other beings into speakers for it. "
Chastity's eyes perk and he screws the flask shut, leaning in..."Now you've caught my ear..." he says as a finger pulls his headphones down, neo-gothic sounds pumping softly from them for the extremely discerning ear.
Coalesce gets another spiky ripple along his arm, out to his fingertips which deform into spherical globes before returning to normal.
Coalesce glances at his offending arm sharply, and gives a voluntary whole-body shudder.
Materi watches Coalesce cautiously. "For those of us who could LITERALLY become speakers.. Broadcast it across the whole Mess... It's a bit of a disconcerting thought.
Squizzle glances about. "Excuse me..."
Squizzle disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Squizzle has left.
Chastity watches the arm quietly, his head cocking...As a sound technician, the dragon's much more fascinated than worried. "Arm acting up?"
Coalesce says, "Well. The songvirus I mentioned...I've got one. "
Chastity's tail flicks. "Really? What has it inflicted upon you, if I may ask?"
Coalesce says, "I've been resisting it. Caught it from...somewhere, had to reboot entirely and erase it from my memory...which left me no defense when I caught it again, since I didn't know what it sounded like ."
Twin says, "How does it go?"
Chastity glances to Twin, blinking. "Doesn't answering that question risk infect anyone who can hear it...?"
Twin smiles. "Yes. So?"
Materi says, "We've been trying to contain the... infection. Though I must admit I'm a bit curious myself..."
Coalesce says, "you....want me to sing it? "
Twin says, "Sure. Let's jam around it! Find out what it *does*."
Twin grins. "Is it pretty?"
Coalesce says, "It...can be. I've spent so long trying to ignore it..."
Chastity licks his lips...He opens his shirt and pulls out his floppy, disk shaped music player. The dragon flattens it out and points one of the data ports towards Coalesce, "Perhaps you could load it into this, and then we could analyze it somewhere else?"
Coalesce says, "I....don't know how safe it is. "
Coalesce says, "Can you analyze it without listening? The infection might not spread through diagrams. "
Twin shrugs. "So we all get a memory wipe of the past few minutes if bad things happen?"
Chastity nods softly, swaying his tail. "Spectrograph analysis and such, of course..."
Twin calls on the infosystems, and instantiates pills. "Ten-minute short-term-memory wipe," (she) says, offering. "And I/singularity will pull back my senses from my mass self."
Coalesce ripples again, another waveform spike traveling across his chest and one leg. "It...has been clamoring for a concert...
Materi hms. "Not sure the pills can work for me, but... Ah. I know."
Materi breaks apart into the silver globules, again, then they all drift in two directions, one set heading quickly down the hole while the other forms back into realistic shape.
Materi says, "I'm totally disconnected from the other copy now. I'll just.. well.. delete, if the rest of you take the pills. It's pretty much equivalent."
Coalesce looks concerned. "You would be willing to risk infection?"
Twin smiles. "And if it goes awry, then, well, I'll just filter my own memories."
Materi says, "I'm a restricted subset. The rest is well out of listening range."
Coalesce hmms. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before."
Chastity sways his tail, remaining quiet for a moment. "What does it even do...?"
Coalesce says, "I....haven't let it get that far yet. It wants to infect minds. I was not allowing it. It's why I...spend a lot of time in the Forge, trying to distract myself from the tune. "
Chastity nods softly. "I see..."
Coalesce quivers, his feet thumping on the ground to some beat. "It's coming loose....prepare to record...or delete..."
Chastity pauses...The dragon lifts up the music player and quickly cycles on the touch screen through a few buttons. He holds one hand with it out, ready to hit the proper button...Incidentally, his headphones remain off his earholes.
Twin flickers cool colors on Coalesce's beat.
Materi watches, cautious...
Coalesce extrudes more spikeshapes that pulse with internal energy, then become audible. Complex chords overlap into a wash of soundscape.
Materi picks up the rhythm, body losing cohesion, rippling with the sounds, soon joining in, as if ve already knows the tune...
Coalesce sounds out minor chords sliding into eerie frequencies, the music forming a backbeat in the lower ranges and some that are only felt. His substance thumps on the surface of the sunsphere while other parts tune into spheres for different sounds.
Twin listens, and begins soft polyphony, playing with the themes, twisting them around and upside down.
Coalesce chants in line with the generated beat, softly at first in minor keys. "A laya laya, lola lo lai."
Chastity's head slowly bobs along, the dragon's eyes closing as he hears the song...His body starts to shiver a little with the sound, a hand sliding over part of his covered chest as he licks his lips. "Oooh..."
Materi loses more and more form, but starts to move more and more with the music, tendrils of nanostuff starting to curl around the other three, colors changing as rainbow sine waves through the form...
Coalesce says, "Orou la ala, hom ouw a maya yai. Fona raja solo mana sai."
Chastity takes deep breaths, slumping back onto his tailbase..."Oh...this...is perfect sound..."
Coalesce drums out the rhythm that is still methodical and deliberate. Parts of him weave around in circles, vibrations traveling along them into the sphere-speakers.
Coalesce says, "Musha resha noneh whai..."
Twin sings along, fractional-seconds behind.
Twin pirouettes and dances, starting to express the theme in motion...
Coalesce trills, "Ai, ai, laya laya ai.", and echoes himself in a higher octave at the same time, "hona hona hona hona..."
Twin o/" Ai, ai, laya laya ai. o/"
Chastity lifts up one of his headphone speakers to an earhole...He taps a few buttons on his player, listening to the two voices, and then to the extra speaker as the device records...
Materi's part seems to have been set as audiovisual accompaniment, rather than voice, especially since ve doesn't have much of anything like a mouth anymore anyway. The form spreads out, sheets of light and sound now, playing out a mix of natural- and artificial-sounding instrument voices.
Coalesce sings, "Aya kola matah owah vey," a bit louder, with a slight vibrato at the upward notes.
Chastity's eyes dance over Coalesce and Materi, the dragon purring heavily with the mix of sounds as his tail sways...
Twin chimes in, a fluttering chorus of voices, on the choral responses: "Soma soma soma soma..." (she) chants, tranquil colors cycling through (her) body.
Coalesce pumps out the sounds, echoing across the Park and seeming to make the struts of the Orrery even vibrate.
Coalesce says, "Reshi lona matah nira. (polo polo polo polo) Laya laya ranai shome (orou orou orou orou)..."
Materi's haze takes on a bit more structure, but it's as mysterious as anything else.. Vague humanoid forms, now, moving to the song..
Coalesce swings the beat slightly faster, the bass harmonics changing subtly to a different key. Alternating clicks and inorganic sounds erupt from the larger emitting spheres. Harsh chords from distorted strings change the mood of the song abruptly.
Ake climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Ake has arrived.
Twin bows deeply to Ake amidst (her) dance and song. (OOC: Y'know that song virus Coalesce keeps going on about? We're letting it out.)
Coalesce emits, somewhat differently voices, "Gatoch mokru sacri angsto..."
Ake sags achingly against the tree, rubs at his sore joints and gawks at the show.
Chastity's body arches as he hears the change in cords, his wings flicking as he licks his lips. "Aaah..."
[OOC] Coalesce has also turned into a speaker/instrument array and is playing himself...
Upon Materi's 'screen', the forms seem to be gathering, each one singing a part of the song. A circle of them... then... nested circles... all singing toward the middle.
Twin continues, high and pure and tight and luminous: o/" Qurtchi lakto Xorma Julen o/"
Chastity's eyes dance over Materi's screen...He's possibly the only one not singing, and there's a natural cause for why he never sings above a mumble. However, he hangs raptly on every note...
Coalesce chants faster, slinging words as if bullets. "Matakgh yulur hatchu bores. Nonest kraken deste vira holwen maja tezy grashtaa...." The last word nearly a shriek, catching a note and holding it while the various thrumming chords halt for mere seconds...tendrils of plasm arcing upward in mirror to the sound, before crashing down into tangled nested beatloops and percussion.
Ake sighs and lets the music sink into his conscious mind and ailing body, and deep into the distant, disintigrating whorls of his god-id.
Twin shouts, with a clap of thunder, almost, "Ratasha."
Coalesce replies in turn, "Matanah!"
Chastity collapses backwards as he watches, the recorder still held up eagerly as he listens to all the voices and watches all the visuals, his mind wrapping itself in the beats, harmonies, and melodies.
The circles turn away, disperse... Each one then forming another circle of singers around itself. The view spreads, pulls away, showing the sketchy scene from farther and farther vantage points...
Coalesce's tendrils curve up and over, overlapping in a weaving dance around a spherical center, as if preparing a space for something within. The outlying sound generators still pace the beat and volume, carefully adding back in the tonal elements introduced at the beginning.
Twin turns loops and twists in the air through the rings of Orrey, whispering faintly, singing pure sinewave whalesong starsong beneath the words of songvirus.
Coalesce cascades back into a refrain. "A laya laya, krodo molu eh. Lam ba culiera som..."
Squizzle climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Squizzle has arrived.
Squizzle says, "Hello again, everyone."
[OOC] Materi says, "Okay, we need a 'viral meme performance art' warning sign to hang over the hole, clearly. ;o)"
[OOC] Coalesce grins. Notes to Squizzle, that songvirus is being let loose.
[OOC] Twin says, "Coalesce is Singing That Song He Caught. Lyrics in his LJ if you care to catch it."
[OOC] Chastity is starting to run out of time, unfortunately...
Coalesce curves looping lines around a hole in his center, folding over and inward as if following lines of magflux.
Ake leans back limply against the tree. His jaw goes slack, his eyes cross and their swirling glow seems to intensify, and a tear rolls down one of his dull blue cheeks.
Ake's breathing is labored. "What...is sat...song?"
The dispersed sheets of Materi-fog pict out the spread, the song seeming to infect diverse new forms, each singer gathering a group of figures of all colors, shapes, and even styles. Cave paintings, petroglyphs, aboriginal bark carvings... circuit diagrams... they all join the song.
Twin pauses in (her) gleeful acceptance of possible infection and looks Ake over. "It's... viral, Ake... should you be listening, falling apart as you are?"
Ake pulls his knees to his chest and sobs involuntarily. "Idanno..."
Squizzle hops (and climbs, if necessary) over beside Ake. "A tune? A project? A battle in the art war?"
Squizzle says, "A mind? A machine? Quite possibly someone's idea of a joke?"
Coalesce spins out a spiraling web of words, pulses of bass and treble flowing into each other, synthetic string and reeds pulling up and down swathes of cold hard sound to back the words. "Nifti rala fenri souto....Canci gulagh orou sashti rey...
Ake's begins mouthing the words to the song, chokingly, reluctantly, not audible yet.
Chastity licks his lips as he dutifully records every note...More than happily accepting the infection, the dragon plans on testing his mixing abilities to the fullest extent with this piece of music.
"quaAAAAANtaaAAAAAAAA!" Twin chants in a vast chorus of voices, masculine, feminine, young, old, clicked, belched, sung...
Suddenly all the forms turn, as one, and head back to the 'center', the area between where Coalesce and Chastity and Twin are all standing.. They gather, again, like the first, encircling, packing in, all gathered and mixed and singing their parts... And in the center, there's... something new...
Ake weakly pulls himself forward onto hands and knees, tracing patterns with long thin fingers on the faintly glowing sun-stage beneath him, still mumbling the song...
Coalesce's spherical center coils around itself, swelling. A sharp tinge of ozone carries in the air, a flickering pulse in tune with the flowing music becoming audibly visible.
Twin reaches out with a subtle shift of gravity, lightening the local pull on Ake some. Humming little variations on the music in the brief break--
Chastity's form starts to slump over...While the dragon can't sustain consciousness for the moment, his recorder can stay up much longer than he can...With a few taps on its screen, he also sets it up to play the song over...and over...and over as he sleeps.
Coalesce croons the background of a full orchestral swell of the musical ocean, his sphere-cage bending outward with a smooth chant of light in the center.
The scene focuses on the center, but gives a few of some of the assembled too, light lines seeming to flow from them to the new feature, giving it strength, making it grow.. The center becomes ever more complex, ever more indescribable, ever more beautiful.
Chastity has disconnected.
Ake looks up at Coalesce for a brief moment. "Mishnu...verni...yuina?" He collapses.
Coalesce sweeps forward with the beat and it becomes stronger, the center holds, pressing outward, receiving inward the lightlines from Materi's projections.
Coalesce's excitation translates into the last words....
Coalesce chants "Mishnu verni
Coalesce chants "yuina quiveh
Coalesce chants "krala uver
Coalesce chants "jakah kola
Coalesce chants "trulni ada gropha
Coalesce chants "lio crawo rachta molaki
Coalesce chants "ka ni a broctu hohna freshnu
Coalesce chants "hora mahni polu lara naima a krie
Coalesce chants "de noray wa frumus grabuska krani
Coalesce chants "mochta ou ne ra...
Twin draws in a deep breath, preparing to let out a long exhalation in concert with, and spits it out in a scream instead: "AKE!" (She) darts to his side in a blur, hands centimeters above him, not quite sure if (she) should touch, probing as delicately as (she) cna with fine ripples of space, wide spectra of vision, anything (she) can use to find out if the tengu is alive...
The light sphere swells....crumbles. Ragged around edges, tearing into shreds.
Ake breathes shallowly, eyes half-open but not really seeing anything.
The new form blossoms, pulling in all of Materi's dispersed cloud, becoming three-dimensional, adding complexity and detail even as it totally fails to look like anything recognizable. it swells, tracings and tendrils and crystals amd maybe even limbs showing and dissapearing and shedding and gathering.. It raises up at the climax of the song, and... disperses, still beautifully, seeming not to dissapear into the air but become part of it.
Coalesce's form melts around the dispersal of the lightform, dipping back into himself and gathering the instrument spheres together.
Twin says, "...Up. They all say that Up is where the best care for sentients is. But I know his condition's as much magical as physical and where are there shamen, where are there mages? Oh I don't KNOW..."
The accompaniment fades now, and with it much of the urge, the sing reaching a stopping point... or perhaps just an extended rest.
Materi climbs out from the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Materi has arrived.
Materi looks around.. Seems silent now, at least. "So... what'd I miss?"
Twin's collar flickers lights as (she) lifts Ake up without touching him, gentle hands of gravity lifting the tengu. "We can analyze the song later. Ake's dying, I think."
Twin offers to let Ake walk along with (her).
Coalesce gathers up into a low, flattened ball. All of his substance reformed now, the light vanished into nothingness...or substance.
Ake decides to walk along with Twin.
Ake sighs, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his beak.
Twin says, "Materi. Bring Coalesce if he's conscious. Oh, I had to wipe it all, just in case. Just a faint memory."
Twin disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Twin has left.
Ake has left.
Twin leaves, with Ake walking along with (her).
Coalesce emits a low groan, rippling slightly.
You whisper, "I'd like to follow along, want to carry?" to Materi.
Materi shudders lightly, eyes widening as ve becomes aware of something not entirely apparent to the others. Then, ve winces, glancing over at Ake. "...Oh. Right."
Squizzle blinks a few times. "Whanah... what's going on?"
Squizzle disappears down the hole at the base of the cube tree.
Materi walks along, with you following ver.
End of Part 1
Notes from here, character-wise. I'm open to interactions with the songvirus for anyone, at this point, even if perhaps non-con IC. Coal was very apprehensive about letting it out, but now he's likely to want to spread it farther. Or it's just gotten a deeper hold on his mind. Either way, I'd like to do more collaborative stuff. Those in attendance likely have been 'infected' and Chastity recorded the music as well. :-}
Future plans are going to be interesting, but the idea is to gather more people in a concert setting and have them all singing. Something new will emerge, foreshadowed by Materi's images and the lightspark of Coal's.