World of Orrison

As it was, Lukial rarely saw the ocean. Why would he? His parents dealt with the composers, mostly, and composers don’t go to the ocean. Then, Butler dealt with everything else, so Lukial simply let Butler take care of the estate so he could hole up in the mansion.

Elegy hadn’t gone much either. When Lukial asked, one day in the library - as they seem to always be in the library - Elegy only gave noncommittal answers. Vague mentions of blackened water and strange floppy creatures. “Do you eat fish?” Lukial asked Elegy.

The Luto tilted its head back and forth.

“You eat my needles all the time,” Lukial replies. Elegy was fond of stealing little metal bits and bobs from his workshop, only to return them later. It had a love for gold and silver.

Butler had determined that it was a nice day, and on nice days the master of the house could go out and see the merchants at the docks. Lukial protested at first, but Butler only turned him to his room with a firm hand and instructions to get a hat. Hat acquired, Lukial squeezed Elegy tightly and sulked in the carriage taking him through the city.

At the sound of loud chimes, Lukial put Elegy by the window so it could look out, and stuck his head outside the carriage as it came to a stop.

The ocean breeze swung the flat gold bars of a massive signal repeater against each other, tolling out dulcet notes. It was the gold that made the sound so melodic, Lukial recalled. Lukial strained his ears and could hear other signal repeaters, gold and silver and bronzes, ringing out alongside the one overhead. Bright red streamers flew from the ends of each bar on the repeater, dancing and swiveling in the air.

“It sounds like bells,” Lukial said, and gathered Elegy back up. Hopping out of the carriage, he strides along the wood of the dock, watching the ships sway in time to the dark sea.

Elegy pawed his arm and squirmed out of his grip, dropping to the ground with little grace and a soft thud. It trotted alongside Lukial as they wandered away from the carriage and the rest of their retinue, seeming to be enjoying the scene.

Lukial looks at it when they come to a stop at the end of a dock. “You are going to get dirty,” he says, and makes no move to pick Elegy up. Instead, he looks out at a magic-tainted sea and where it gently touches the horizon.

To the ringing of repeaters, sweet with gold, Elegy cranked the key of its music box. Lukial crouched down to tilt an ear in its direction.

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