1: Liran

•─────⋅☾Sol Rule 3126, Fern Town of Snow Peak Valley☽⋅─────•

"The blowing horns of valor..." 

As she sang the familiar song, Liran's imagination was yanked into dark stories of bloody battles between the living and dead. Loyalty, fate...  such a past age of glory.

"Stomping boots to the sound of drums..." 

Her hands clapped to one rhythm, stirring to mind an image of a thousand strikes. Her feet stomped to one beat: her singing carried like it held the emotions of many voices with their desperate clinging to wants, wishes, and thoughts of the living.

"The dark night faces the rising sun." 

Liran lifted her head to the fresh sun in her sky. Her imagination of those dark times,  belonging to the song, faded as quickly as a gust of wind.

Her lush, full lips stretched in a wide grin almost from one pointy tip of her ear to the other. 

"Oh, how blessed the new sunturn is!" She breathed in deep, her chest expanding from the lush, sweet, fragrant, free air of a brand new day.

The ditty chirping of passing small birds uplifted her spirits. They flew over her head like they were laughing with each other.

Plop. Plop. Plonk.

"What the?" She felt something wet land on her head. Her fingers picked up a sticky, gunky ickiness.

"Which bird decided living isn't for them?! Not funny!" She snapped at the escaping sparrows that had gifted her with their morning dump.

She glanced around for something to use to clean her hair and saw the start of some woods where she heard the sound of running water. She ambled into the woods and knelt beside a gushing brook.

"Crapping on my head makes them happy, so be it. Their lives are short after all, especially on a rotating spit over hot coals," she grumbled, with her long blond ponytail and the top of her head getting soaked.

As she was looking down into the water, her eye caught an odd sight.

A tiny black pebble shimmered with an ethereal glow before blending into the background. It emitted a magic that caused the water to freeze. She had to yank her hair out before it got caught in ice sheets.

Her round blue eyes glowed as her lingxi (external energy converted to be internal power) activated her diagnosis abilities within her blood code. She saw detached particles of energy being absorbed into the pebble. Rather, it was devouring the surrounding lifeforce.

Liran sat back and shook her hair dry. 

She then unwrapped the lute she had pulled off her back: her trusty four-string companion with a leaf-shaped bone-wood body made of rare elderwood, which was a native Ki tree species long gone.

Kneeling upright with her lute positioned for playing, she envisioned the starting note and plucked a soothing lullaby to retune the energy imbalance.

As she played her music, nature reacted as wispy white magic that lazed about her hands. Her vitality was being maintained as she negated the corrupt energy.

By the second verse, the water was flowing again: the devouring magic stopped. The rock's dark energy was cleared. Just another pebble in a brook.

Liran closed down her magic with the thought of a fading leaf. She took her time in rewrapping her lute with the muslin cloth and belt straps before returning it to her back.

Some of her tan traveling cloak and long, matching-colored floral dress got wet as she pulled out the odd rock, which resembled an irregular heart shape. Yet, it was polished smooth and had a crystal texture like an onyx.

After some thought, she placed it in her pocket and rose to resume her journey.

"Woah!" She wobbled as one of her knee-high soft brown heeled boots slipped on a rock. Despite being top-heavy beneath her blouse, she was agile to regain her footing. She strolled out of the woods and back onto the road, where she glanced at the sky to check the time.

"I should be able to make it to Fern Town by the afternoon." Her stomach let out a groan. The thought of food gave her a determination to reach her destination in a quick time.

Strolling the road again, she felt a soothing and peaceful calm from the surrounding lands. Her hands would surely play hard and fast tonight.