Work Text:
Your Song
The translator didn’t work with music. Whatever the Master said was automatically translated by the magic of Kingdom Hearts. Whatever the Master wrote, the letters squiggled and squirmed into something readable within a moment. The translation effects were so quick, neither Aced nor Ira even noticed that the letters moved for months before Ava brought it up in a discussion with Gula.
But it didn’t work for songs. Or poetry, for that matter. If the Master tried to speak the lyrics or lines in a suitably unrhythmic fashion, the translator worked, albeit in a gratingly disjointed fashion, that left the poetry plebeian and the lyrics mystifyingly nonsensical. But the Master loved singing to himself and Luxu had caught the Master dancing to some tune coming from the strange device he’d brought from Eårth—carefully brought to life with a heavily modified Thunder spell which he relied on Luxu to cast for him, as the Master was terrible at Thunder spells to the point he joked that he was allergic—on more than one occasion.
With some persuasion, Luxu had managed to convince the Master to teach him the Master’s native tongue, so when he entered the Master’s study for his lesson, he was able to pick out bits and pieces of the words swirling far too loudly around the room.
“I ____ you__ happy.
I ____ you__ happy now.
I ____ you__ happy ___ you__
Hurt your _____ forever
I ____ you think you__ clever.”
The Master, hood up, was dramatically singing along, one hand on his heart and other flung out in fake supplication. How his voice was matching the woman’s was actually a little impressive. A second woman started to respond and Luxu finally gave in and tapped the Master on the shoulder.
“Master, can you turn it down?” He half-shouted at the older man.
The Master deflated and moved over to fiddle with the contraption—the faohn, Luxu had recently learned it was called—and the music was blessedly turned down to a tolerable volume.
The Master lowered his hood and his cheeks were puffed out in a pout.
“But Luxu,” he whined. “This is your song!”
“My song?” Luxu asked, startled.
“Yeah! This song represents you best. I’ve decided that I’m going to figure out everyone’s song and play it before each person’s lesson to get me in the mood!” He half pumped his fist into the air, before lowering it and looking slightly dejected. “The only other one I’ve been able to figure out so far is ‘Green Finch and Linnet Bird’ for Ava.”
Luxu digested this as the song continued to warble in the background, the slow melody clearly building toward something faster and more complicated.
“Too late for second-guess___.
Too late to go back to sleep.
It’s time to _____ my ________
Close my eyes and ____!”
Before the song could continue, Luxu leaned over and tapped the two lines button he’d learned through trial and error made the music stop.
“Master, it’s time for our lesson now. You can continue listening after I’ve left.”
The Master “hmph”-ed at him, but obediently started teaching.
***
A year later and Luxu entered for another lesson, only to have that song playing again. He’d started hearing it in his mind’s ear in random places, even hearing it in his dreams. It was annoying, to say the least. At least, by now, he understood most of it.
The others, who were having similar problems, went around half singing words that they couldn’t even fathom. Ava didn’t really mind, but Gula wouldn’t stop ranting and bursting out with “why?!”s and Invi was silently, but obviously, being driven up the wall because of her lack of comprehension. Aced just gave the occasional grumble. What Ira thought, no one knew, as he was keeping silent on the matter. Luxu suspected he didn’t care.
"I think I’ll try defying gravity—”
The Master, who’d been singing along as always, coughed, and complained to himself,
“It’s still too complicated!”
Luxu wondered that the problem wasn’t that the song was too high, made for a mezzo soprano, after all.
“If this is supposed to be my song, are you the wizard, Master?” Luxu asked bemusedly. The Master turned to him and looked vaguely horrified.
“No, no. The wizard is the bad guy. She’s breaking free of the hopes and expectations and admiration she’s carried for him all these years… I suppose when I put it that way… No! NO! I’m not the bad guy!” He unexpectedly glomped Luxu and wailed into Luxu’s ear. “Lu~xu~. Don’t leave meeeeeeeee. I’ll be a better master.” He gave a fake sob, before changing his tone to something similar to a spoiled and potentially malicious child’s. “The wizard is Xe—er, no one! The song doesn’t have to be a 1:1 translation. It’s just a hint about how cool you’re going to be in the future!”
“Whatever. As if.” Luxu rolled his eyes and pushed the man away. “Let’s get to my lesson.”
***
Demyx stood in the training room, waiting for Axel. It was his second full day at Never Was. Yesterday Axel had given him a tour of the castle, and today he was supposed to be training Demyx in his powers. He wondered what was taking Axel so long. A portal opened and a figure stepped out, but not the one Demyx was expecting.
“Oh, hey, kiddo. Axel’s deserted you, huh?” Demyx tried to open his mouth to protest, but the figure kept talking, not letting a word in edgewise. “Guess I’ll have to be the one to teach ya then. Just you and me today.” Demyx was a little scared of Xigbar’s grin.
“Um… can you show me your power first?” Demyx shyly requested. “Maybe if I see how someone else’s power works, I’ll have a better idea how to summon mine?” He ended on an uncertain note.
“Uh, sure.” Xigbar agreed.
Demyx felt his jaw drop as Xigbar was suddenly flipped and above him, standing upside down under a black… blob? Portal? Fuzzy cloud? He stood on tiptoe to get a better look, before he got a face full of hair, as Xigbar released his gravity manipulation from the salt and pepper strands.
“Hey!” He protested.
“You’re supposed to be paying attention.” Xigbar replied smugly. Some sort of gun materialized in each hand, and he gestured with one toward the empty room.
“Watch this.”
The next few minutes were spent with Xigbar shooting at invisible targets and Demyx watching, half in awe, half absentmindedly. He knew he didn’t have any memories, but something about Xigbar being upside down was resonating with him strongly. It was on the tip of his tongue, if he had just a few more moments…
“Well? What do you think?” Xigbar was looking at him expectantly. ‘Think? Think!’ A spark ignited in the back of Demyx’s mind and the words came out before he could stop them.
“I think I’ll try defying gravity?” It ended up coming out as a question. He didn’t know why he said those words, but Xigbar’s eye had widened in shock, before eyeing him appraisingly. A moment later and he had clearly dismissed whatever speculation had crossed his mind.
“Defying gravity… yup, that’s me. What do you think?”
“Very cool!” Demyx grinned. Xigbar looked satisfied.
“Now let’s focus on you and figuring out your powers.”
Demyx nodded and found himself humming an unknown tune. Xigbar just looked at him out of the corner of his eye and almost inaudibly hummed along.
***********************************************
For anyone who didn’t get it, the song was “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked. This is the song that ends Act 1, and is designed to make you cry. It doesn’t make me cry listening to it out of context, but man, the first time I heard it while watching the show… The original actress to sing it is also the voice actor for Elsa from Frozen, but frankly I always thought “Defying Gravity” was so much more powerful and moving than “Let It Go.”
I took singing lessons for years, and at one point, I tried learning “DG.” Unfortunately, it was too low for my voice, besides being too complicated. When my voice is untrained, I’m a mezzo, but after a year or so of training, it becomes a soprano and mezzo’s too low. Or at least, that’s what my teacher said... T_T It’s been years since my last lesson, so perhaps I can sing it now?
I have absolutely no opinion on the “Who is Subject X” debate. Still, I thought that “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” (Sweeney Todd) was a sweet song to fit a sweet girl, but when I looked over the lyrics again, I noticed how well it would fit if Ava were Subject X… I have no qualms with this idea being ixnayed by Nomura. I still think it sort of fits, regardless.
Did anyone spot the “Don’t Piss Off Demyx” reference? This is the third story in which I’ve mentioned Kingdom Hearts auto translating Demyx’s speech, so it isn’t that. Hehe. A sentence and a paragraph were lifted directly from that story. (￣▽￣) But are the motives still the same? Mwahaha. Who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: I just remembered that there a “How Love Destroyed the Worlds” reference too. The phone mentioned in the story is the same one Myde was clutching in the beginning of that story.