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From the private diary of Johan Saint-Saëns:
I've been with the Voidfish since forever and I've never seen it react like that before! I've fed it literally hundreds of compositions and dozens of people's lifetimes and only now, when Magnus the Golden Boy Reclaimer Burnsides arrives, does this damn thing make any sort of actual response.
I'm pretty mad to be honest. Why him? Why do I get nothing when he gets everything and more? Fucking bullshit is why.
But like...that music was...it was simple sure, nothing like the compositions I've been feeding it. Just seven little notes over and over again, but it SANG and I played along and for the first time I didn't have to feed it anything for it to react to my music. (That was pretty cathartic, I guess, not having to feed it to get a reaction. I just wish it had only been me when it happened. It's my Voidfish dammit!)
From the private diary of Johan Saint-Saëns:
I've been spending more and more time playing with the Voidfish. It still likes that seven-note song, sure, but it's been branching out. Sometimes it plays parts I recognize as my work and sometimes it plays things I've never heard before. It reacts to my just noodling around and joins in. Those are some of the happiest moments of my life.
I wonder if it remembers it's time planetside with me? Does it remember the small cave it called home for the longest time? Does it remember me coming by, beat all to hell and crying, to talk to it and express my woes? Does it remember my parents? Could it take the memory of them from me?
Ha probably not. I've already drank it's ichor so even if it did take their memory, I'd still remember and that would defeat the point, wouldn't it?
Still...I have to wonder how much of me it remembers and how much of me it's eaten? Did it even realize, long before I realized that I was feeding it when I talked to it, that it was erasing me? Does it realize that I really can't go planetside anymore because to Faerûn I'm just a blank space? Does it know it's tethered me to this fake moon for the rest of my long, miserable life?
I can't bring myself to hate it. It's like my brother and my best friend. And now that it sings with me, it's my biggest fan and my accompaniment. I love the Voidfish. It's all I have left.
I can't say the same about Magnus.
My mother would say "jealousy is an ugly color on you, Johan!" Then, when I would argue that I'm not jealous—because I'm not dammit!—she'd smack me and I'd shut up pretty quick. There wasn't a lot of time for crying in the Saint-Saëns household...not that I really followed the rules all that often. That was a talking point too.
Whatever. Things are different now and fuck yeah I'm jealous! The Voidfish is all I have left and I won't let some uppity human Reclaimer take this from me! Even if he doesn't mean to, he's doing just that and I won't let him.
I just...don't want to lose the last of my life before. It's the only part of it I liked.
From the private diary of Johan Saint-Saëns:
Lucretia says that I've been too loud lately. She's on edge but I think she's right, the Voidfish and I have been spending a lot of time composing together, learning new tricks and twists and the rise and fall of whatever musical language we speak together. I just, I really need to relax and this is the best way for me.
Speaking of language, I realized that the Voidfish has been communicating, although in a very rudimentary manner, with me through the note names. The first song it ever sang, that one seven letter song, is EGGBABE. Egg baby. I think there's an egg somewhere but I don't know why it was only telling Magnus that. Whatever. It doesn't matter—even though it kinda does.
Now though? It says things like BEAFE (be safe I guess) and ADAE (that one might be adore?). It's very simple and hard to understand sometimes but when you're limited to seven letters even talking gets hard. But it's something.
Magnus doesn't think I notice him coming into the Voidfish's room in the middle of the night and talking to it. I guess he thinks I'm stupid or something. I'm not. I know.
He comes in and talks to it the same way I did when I was little. He tells it his fears and about his day and all of his memories, good and bad. He keeps talking about the Red Robes and how he's confused about whether or not they're really bad. About how little information we're given about them. He's worried. He's scared. He misses Julia. (Whoever that is.)
When I hear that part of him, that vulnerable part that worries and frets and can't sleep in the wee hours of the night, I don't hate him half as much as I normally do. Almost.
What he's doing is treason. Lucretia would have his head if she knew. I should tell her.
I'm not going to though. I couldn't tell you why. It may have to do with the fact that there's solidarity in companionship, even if the two parties hate each other. Or one of them hates the other. I don't think Magnus has a single hateful bone in his body.
I think I may write a new piece when all of this is over. Something light and airy, with a Voidfish accompaniment. Yeah. And I'll go planetside and set up a small cabin near the ocean where the Voidfish can live and I won't have to be quiet at all. And I'll compose night and day when I want and when I don't I'll just do nothing. That'll be great.
And the Voidfish and I will live happily ever after.