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The child is exhausted, here in the City of Tears. It is swarmed by enemies, followed constantly with very little chance for respite. So when it sees a building adorned with an old sign declaring it to have a hot spring—a place where it would be capable of taking a moment to attend to its wounds—it is not foolish enough to pass by the opportunity.
When they enter, the child hears a high, soft voice echoing through the halls. It does not think it has ever heard anything quite like it before. It is surely a voice, but it glides through the air almost with the same gracefulness as the sound of rainfall just outside the door. The pitch turns and warbles delicately.
The child peers around, following the sound. It grows louder as it heads to the second floor of the building, the soft hums stronger.
Tucked away in one room, in the center of a abandoned, run down stage, floats a ghost. The child has seen ghosts before, of course, with their strange glowing bodies, always stuck forever waiting in place… though what they are waiting for, the child isn't quite sure. This one is a butterfly, with large pink wings and fuzzy, yellow hair atop her head. When the child enters the room, her eyes turn to it, curious.
The song stops.
"Welcome to my stage little one," she says at once, beckoning it over. "I am Marissa, a songstress of some renown, though given the sorry state of this place, you may find it hard to believe." The lack of song is somehow eerie, as if this place is meant for sound and the absence of it is strange.
The child steps closer, climbing carefully onto the stage to stand beside the butterfly. It has to tip its head back to look at her.
"Huge crowds once flocked to hear me sing," Marissa continues with a soft sigh,"…then something changed. The audience, once so enrapt, began to leave. I continued to sing yet my voice fell silent upon their ears." Her gaze grows distant, drifting to look over the child's head, staring off at some pinprick of air in the distance, where seemingly nothing was.
The child does not answer. It cannot, after all, as it lacks the ability to speak. Instead, it only continues to peer up at the butterfly. She turns her head to gaze back down at him, hair waving in some nonexistent wind.
"Perhaps you'd care to listen to me sing? You'll be the first in an age to hear it," she says, and her song starts again.
The child does not move for a long moment, enraptured. Then, it simply sits on the floor at Marissa's feet, tucking its feet beneath its body as it stays to listen to the bug's song. It flows along with the muffled sounds of rain, still crashing against the building's roof.
It has heard bugs speak before, but it has rarely heard them sing. Myla, the little bug it had met near the Crystal Peaks had sung too, it realizes. It had been an odd, jaunty tune quite unlike the graceful one the child is listening to now.
For a brief, flickering moment, the child wishes that it could sing too. It can feel this wish with every fiber of its being, the want of it thrumming all throughout them. It is jarring, sudden, and it is unsure if it has ever felt anything quite like it before. It moves to touch its chest, cloak ruffling. The child wants to sing… but it cannot speak, let alone sing. It has no voice, as was intended. It can do nothing but sit in silence, head drifting softly to the music.
Later, much later, the child would open its mouth and shriek with its whole entire body. Not a song, not nearly as pretty as Marissa's soft tones, but not silence.
Never, ever silence.