Hello everyone! This the start of part 2 of the song of stone and sky. I had been working on it more and more. Finally decided to make Kaelen a teacher. Now let the journey begin...
Bye.....>
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The problem with saving the world, Kaelen decided, was the paperwork.
A decade ago, his biggest concerns had been Blight-knights, corrupted magic, and the impending end of all things. Now, it was supply requisitions for the winter grain stores, mediating a dispute between the farmers' guild and the herders over grazing rights, and the soul-crushing stack of reports on his desk that never seemed to shrink.
Haven was thriving. That was the official story, and it was true. The settlement nestled in the highlands was a testament to resilience. Stone houses, built with a blend of traditional masonry and the subtle guidance of his Song, dotted the landscape. Smoke curled from chimneys. The fields, while still bearing the faint grey scars of the Blight's passage, yielded enough to eat. It was peace. It was what he'd fought for.
And he was, as Elara so fondly put it, "burned out to a crisp."
He rubbed his temples, trying to focus on the grain report. The numbers blurred. From the open window of his study, the Song of the settlement washed over him—a constant, low-grade hum of hundreds of lives, worries, joys, and chores. The clang of the blacksmith's hammer was a percussive spike of ambition. The laughter of children playing was a bright, fluttery melody. The lowing of the cattle was a deep, contented drone. It was all so… much. After a lifetime of learning to listen, he sometimes wished for a little silence.
A sharp, sudden null sensation cut through the symphony.
It wasn't a sound. It was the absence of one. Like a single instrument in an orchestra cutting out mid-note. It came from the schoolhouse.
Kaelen was on his feet in an instant, the grain report forgotten. That particular flavor of silence was new, and it set his teeth on edge. It wasn't the violent unmaking of the old Blight. This was different. Softer. Like a blanket being thrown over a birdcage.
He crossed the central square, nodding absently at greetings from passersby. The schoolhouse was a long, low building of warm, honey-colored stone, its Song usually a vibrant, chaotic chorus of young, learning minds. Today, it was… muted.
He stepped inside. His assistant, Bren, a young man who had been one of his first students, was standing at the front, looking flustered. The class of a dozen teenagers was supposed to be practicing the First Note—the simple act of feeling the patience in a river stone.
Most of them were trying. Kaelen could feel their efforts like faint, flickering candles. But in the back corner, a girl named Lyra sat perfectly still, a smooth, grey stone on the desk in front of her. And around her, there was nothing. No flicker of effort. No hum of the stone's innate song. Just a perfect, serene, and utterly terrifying sphere of quiet.
Lyra was his most gifted student. She could feel the Aether-Weave with an intuitive ease he'd never possessed. And recently, she'd stopped trying to Sing. She just… listened. And when she listened too hard, things went quiet.
"Lyra," Bren said, his voice strained with forced patience. "You have to actually try. Reach for it. Ask the stone its story."
Lyra didn't look up. Her focus was absolute. "Its story is that it's a rock," she said, her voice flat. "It doesn't want to be bothered. Why are we always bothering everything? Can't we just let things be?"
A boy next to her, Jax, snorted. "She's not wrong. This is cringe. My dad is a mason. He doesn't 'sing' to the rocks. He just hits them with a hammer. Works fine."
Kaelen felt a familiar frustration bubble up. This was the new battle. Not against monsters, but against apathy. Against a generation that saw the great, beautiful struggle of the Song as… extra work.
"Jax, the hammer is just a different kind of song," Kaelen said, stepping fully into the room. All eyes turned to him. "A loud, simple one. What we learn here is the language beneath the noise."
Lyra finally looked up. Her eyes, usually so bright with curiosity, were dull. "The noise is exhausting, Master Kaelen." She gestured vaguely at the air around her. "It's all just… input. All the time. The stones, the trees, everyone's feelings… it's a lot. Don't you ever just want to turn it all off?"
Her words hit him with the force of a physical blow. Don't you ever just want to turn it all off? He thought of his desk, of the endless reports, of the constant, low-grade hum of Haven. The shameful, secret answer was yes.
Before he could formulate a reply, Lyra sighed, a gesture of profound weariness that looked alien on someone so young. She looked back at her stone, and her focus intensified.
The quiet around her deepened. The flickering "candles" of the other students' efforts guttered and went out, one by one. The very light in the corner of the room seemed to dim, not into darkness, but into a flat, grey neutrality. The river stone on her desk didn't crumble or dissolve. It just became… inert. A lump of matter, utterly divorced from the living Weave. It was no longer a part of the song. It had been, for lack of a better word, muted.
Lyra looked up, a strange, peaceful smile on her face. "See?" she whispered. "Quiet."
A stunned silence filled the room, broken only by the distant, unaffected sounds from outside.
Kaelen stared at the dead stone, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. This wasn't a student failing a lesson. This was something new. Something the world hadn't seen before.
The Blight had been a scream of active destruction.
This was the hum of passive cancellation.
And as he looked at Lyra's serene, detached face, he realized the terrifying truth: the next great threat to the Song of Stone and Sky wouldn't be a villain with an army.
It would be a generation that had decided the best way to deal with the world's noise was to put it on silent.