Harp and Sitar met several times again to discuss all manner of things. Most were music related. Many were filled with words about muse.
The more Sitar mentioned it, the more fascinated Harp became with the idea of finding his own muse. He also learned quite a bit about the human Sitar called his own muse.
Zexion was his name and he was young even by human standards. Or perhaps Harp was getting them confused with angel years. It was difficult to know. Nevertheless, only possessing 20 of anything seemed rather lacking. Even cherubs had more history behind them, which made humans strange creatures indeed in Harp's eyes.
Yet whenever Sitar spoke of him, this Zexion, a noticeable change came over him. Harp couldn't say what it was, or how it affected Sitar's ability to play music, or even feel it for that matter. Nevertheless, the change was obvious to Harp, whatever it happened to be. He often wondered how he would ever experience something similar.
One day, Harp simply asked.
They were supposed to be practicing, and technically Sitar was. Harp had hit a wall though and, frustrated, he'd allowed his instrument to fade, hoping a short reprieve might give him a second wind.
"Sitar," he said, perched comfortably on another cloud overhang as the lankier angel lounged beneath him, "you've told me a lot about what your muse is like, what you find intriguing and beneficial for your music through him."
Strumming his own instrument idly as he watched Harp above him, Sitar nodded. Indeed he had.
Harp's brow furrowed. "But how do you access your muse from all the way up here?"
The volume of Sitar's instrument increased ever so slightly, the ascending crescendo mirroring Harp's own rising hopes on the matter. "Simple," he replied, looking down at his current medium still attentively.
Harp leaned forward, eager to hear every word. Sitar offered him only four.
"You go to Earth."
~ o ~ o ~
This is how the angel Harp made his first trip to Earth and walked among humans.
Sitar had said it'd be easy. If something spoke to Harp as it had him, instinct would guide him right to it. That would simply be the end of it. Or the beginning, technically.
Yet all the sights and sounds of a living planet initially overwhelmed Harp, and he found himself cowering behind corners and flinching whenever someone spoke loudly anywhere near his general vicinity. It took some time before he realized humans couldn't see him, their senses dulled to the supernatural thanks to the over-stimulation of their own man-made technologies.
Animals noticed his presence sometimes, although even then Harp couldn't claim that they truly saw him. Sensed was perhaps a better word for it. Often, in passing, a dog would lift its head, or a cat would follow him with glowing yellow eyes, always unfocused, always sniffing to identify the unusual presence who made no sound, who left no noticeable mark on the ground he traversed.
Harp could not say how long he explored Earth, for Earth time is different than that which passes in Heaven. All he could say for certain was that he had not missed a practice, for he would have felt Conductor's wrath almost immediately. Of that he was sure.
Then one day, he heard it, all other sounds dulling as the point of his interest intensified. The sound was choking, was a breathless sob that made Harp's own small chest ache unpleasantly. It was this sound that propelled him forward.
It led him to the living room of a small apartment. Harp had never before entered the dwelling place of a human, but he didn't hesitate even a moment. All doors are open to angels, all paths are made clear by El. Harp slipped in effortlessly through one of the walls.
It was night when he arrived, and the room was dark. Harp had little reason to need artificial illumination however; his own yellow aura lit up the room with clarity. And there in the midst of an ordinary human living space, Harp was surrounded by blue, blue eyes. Blue eyes and a flash of red.
Intrigued, he moved forward, to the mantle above a small fireplace. Nearby, a grey tabby cat looked up, ears alert and eyes searching.
There, in a multitude of frames, Harp saw…himself.
He blinked, confused, inching closer to take a better look. An older version of someone who looked very much like Harp stared back at him, always smiling widely, or at least using his eyes to communicate good humor.
The figure's eyes were what helped to ground the young musician. If not for them, Harp may have been spooked straight out of that home, straight off of Earth itself. This figure, as identical as he looked to Harp, had very vividly blue eyes.
Harp's eyes were gold. Not hazel that picked up specks of yellow light in the sun, but pure, unblemished gold, a bright unearthly yellow that even his wings paled in comparison to.
A shuffling sound broke his attention before he had the opportunity to really scrutinize the pictures and the red-haired figure his human doppelgänger was more often than not standing beside. And then, a crash, glass shattering onto tiled floor. Alarmed, Harp alighted, fluttering nervously near the top back wall of the apartment, measuring his decision to flee back home on a constantly changing basis. The cat below him fluffed its tail in fright before scrambling under a nearby chair.
A low sobbing sound filled his ears, forcing him back down to the apartment's floor to investigate. Harp might not have been brave, but he knew when he was being called, somehow, from a deeply unfamiliar part of his being. That call could not be ignored, usually by humans but most certainly by angels without free will of their own to drive their decisions.
With considerable caution, he made his way into the next room.
The sobs grew louder and the pain in his chest more pronounced as a result, until Harp found himself wanting to mimic the sound, desperate to rid himself of a feeling of loss he couldn't remotely begin to understand.
Tile and broken glass met his eyes in the next room. And there before him stood an impossibly tall red-haired man.
Harp's breath caught in his throat as he heard the man keening, observed elbows propped up against the bathroom sink, bright green eyes swollen around the edges, an odd wetness streaked down his gaunt face. The angel had never seen tears before, had never experienced sadness on anything more than the most superficial of levels. Now he felt it all too well, and it was overwhelming in its intensity.
"I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."
The man's words seemed to rip Harp apart, piece by excruciating piece, although he had no idea what someone so perfect could possibly be sorry for. Angels were made in El's likeness. So were humans, albeit imperfectly so, he had always been told.
But there was nothing defective about this one, he decided. Pale skin, green eyes, red hair. Could humans be called beautiful? This one could, Harp decided.
And more than anything, he didn't want this one to hurt.
Without truly thinking, Harp approached, arm reaching tentatively out toward the human, the perfect human who shouldn't have been hurting at any cost. Shimmering fingers brushed against the red-head's warm, trembling shoulder, leaving a trail of softly glowing dust in their wake.
In that moment, Harp thought he might shatter. Feelings beyond any he had ever known assaulted his mind. Images he couldn't possibly hope to understand flashed in front of his eyes. And all the while, blue eyes, blue eyes.
The sensations were so overwhelming to the young angel, it took him a moment to realize the human's trembling had stopped.
He looked up to see incredulous green eyes returning his gaze through the mirror in front of them both. Mouth slightly ajar, Harp could feel the man's shock almost as starkly as he'd felt his pain moments before. But there was something else inching its way outward, and it was an emotion Harp had no difficulties identifying.
Hope.
"Roxas?" The man's question hit him harder than he'd ever imagined an unfamiliar word really could. Startled, Harp drew his hand back, away from the human. Just as quickly, his mirrored reflection began to shimmer gold, matching his eyes in intensity for only a moment, before he dissolved entirely.
The human called out, begging him to wait, and Harp wanted to reply. Pulling into himself so completely however, he couldn't do anything as he felt the rush of his own wings carrying him back to Heaven, back to the safety of his clouds and his own familiar kind, a kind that never changed, that rarely wavered in the purpose for which they had been created.
Among the clouds safe at home, Harp found he still couldn't shake the momentous feeling he'd experienced though. What had it all meant? Why was there so much hurt?
Wrapping his wings around himself protectively, it was now Harp's turn to tremble.
