Vocalism Prodigal Finished

The 1st of May, 2020
Late Morning

What was always a fascinating thing about the human mind — it had a lot of mysteries hidden inside. Magic could meddle with the human mind, there were spells to plant, modify or erase memories. But could magic really make someone know what wasn't known before?

The classroom was bright and there were few students, who decided to attend the practice lesson. Not much time has passed since the horrors of the secret blossom ball, so they were not to blame — they had to mend their wounds and stabilise their mental states. But Meenauh was already fine. She needed something to laugh about. Something else to fill her spiralling maelstrom of exactly the same memories.

They were told to divide into pairs to practice the spell. The whole lesson began quietly and students didn't chatter in between the instructions and didn't dare to speak loudly as well. The fun part of the lesson was in the fact that in a few minutes the classroom would fill with a cacophony of voices, singing random lyrics of the songs they may even not know.

She didn't know her partner, but he seemed to be in a fine spirit. They smiled at each other and pulled their wands out. She nodded at him as inviting him to cast it first. The first problem was that her partner already learnt the spell, and she only studied it. She knew the incantation and she knew the wand movement, but she couldn't practise it and she didn't have a target to practise it on. The partner's spell erupted with pink light and Meenauh felt as if something crawled into her mouth as her vocal cords contracted and she first thought he had cast a different spell. First, the air came out and then she burst into, thankfully, a known song:

"I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living"

"Hope isn't high in this school, though," one of her voices practically burst into laughing in her head, but not for a long as the spell kept going:

"I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving"

What was interesting is that she was no singer. She practically never heard herself singing anything. Humming — yes, but she never opened her mouth to actually sing. She wasn't particularly close to the music world. But what the spell it, it made her a good singer, which was even more surprising. The bad part of it was that she had to concentrate to breathe in between the lines. Quite a challenge. And even more of a challenge to cast a spell properly in between the verses.

"Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted"

She concentrated on the incantation. It was really difficult to concentrate when your mouth was producing something your brain didn't know about. Her job was to just say the incantation correctly. She kept drawing the beamed note symbol in the air, waiting for the pause to insert her incantation.

"There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted"

"Cantis!" she basically screamed as she had to reserve some time for breathing before the next line starts.

The spell hit the boy and he started to basically scat. Meenauh didn't know the technique, so to her that was just nonsensical gibberish. She even thought he faked it as it didn't sound like a song. She frowned at him as she continued to chant her song, which changed to a different one, that time unknown, the next time the spell hit her. Her partner really enjoyed himself. She wanted to laugh, but could only smile as the song didn't allow her to do anything else. But that lesson was just what she needed.

They said that in ancient times the songs were used to heal the wounds of the soul. To send away the sorrow and despair. And Meenauh felt that.

Word Count (without quotes): 611