The Siren's Weeping Ballad…

Apollo ran, as fast as he could. Never looking back, and never really wanting to. When his feet finally gave in, he found himself in front of the Sunshine Coliseum. Finding respite on the park stairs. He drops and wonders… How could the heavens do this to him…

Chapter Seven: You Raise Me Up, to More Than I Can Be

Rhian flew out of the room almost literally. She ran and ran, hoping to reach Apollo, so that he and Lamiroir may talk it out. All that went passed her and all that she past was nothing but smeary blurs to her.

With every stomp of her feet, she taught deeply about Lamiroir, the mere image of her pain was burning in her mind, breaking her down, and weighing down her heart. While she kept going, she spotted a familiar object lying alone on the concrete. She finally broke, her mind was scorching into what could become a pile of ashes, her whole being stumbled on a cold surface, and her heart shattered into a million pieces, and who knew how it was even possible to piece a pair back together. Because there, lying on the cold road, speckled with fragments of snow… Was a bracelet…

Apollo's bracelet…

Rhian felt her hands balling into hard fists. The air in her lungs gave birth to hot tornadoes and her temper simmered to a boiling and dangerous limit. How could Apollo just abandon almost everything he lived for all because of the truth, he was supposed to be a lawyer! She picked up the accessory and went on.

She had enough, that was the last straw. She was going to find that attorney, grab him by the collar or something and give him a piece of her mind!

And the gauge to calming down for Rhian wasn't as fast, before she knew it, she found her target and marched towards the stairs where he sat on.`

She was gonna shout at him, well, that was her plan. But when she saw Apollo with puffy red eyes, she mentally cursed herself, Darn it Rhian! ALL THAT ANGER FOR WHAT?.

She invited herself to a spot next to him, violin still in grip, the bow on the other. They both looked at the setting sky, a medley of orange, red and dashes of pink. When Rhian looked at him, she saw that the warm colors of the sky reflected on Apollo's eyes, even when such a beautiful scene reflects in your eyes, you could still possess such complicated thoughts? The young attorney was the one who decided to break the train of silence, "What's going on…Vent…?" he sadly asked. Rhian managed to smile, but all she could do was place another question in a big pile of unanswered ones…"So you do remember me huh…?" No one in a long time had called her by her second given name. She was Rhian Ventana Rosamond. Ventana was Spanish for "window", although she couldn't understand why she was named after a window, but she can't think about that right now, she needed to mend the bond between the two family members.

"Look," she started to say. "You… really hurt Lamiroir's feelings in there. A lot." Guilt started pinching and stinging on the defense attorney's miserable heart. But it's a big chance that you would react the same way when you were in his situation. Other than laughing it out and taking it a joke.

"Well, you don't know me! We may have met before but that doesn't mean you understand me!"

"Of course I know you! I've been your friend ever since we've met!"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is the point!" Rhian grabbed Apollo's red vest in both her hands, making his focus directly at her eyes. " Apollo, do you know ever since she remembered, she's been dying to tell you about it! The point is, you are a lawyer! You think before you act! What's the point if you can't find the contradiction in your actions!" Apollo was silent, he didn't know what to say, or even if he should say something. He shoved Rhian's hands away from him and glared at her.

"Don't tell me what to do! Do you realize how confused I am?" Tears started crashing like waterfalls from the attorney's eyes. Apollo knelt down, like how a warrior knelt down in defeat. "Someone just tells me she's my mom. And in this world, sometimes… it's hard to just believe the things you are told."

Rhian's anger, steamed down. She felt bad she just went scolding someone who was so confused. When she should be calming the guy down as to not complicate anything else. She knelt in front of Apollo, feeling guilty enough for many things right now. She tried plan B, calming down.

"You remember that Christmas Eve when you broke my favorite music box?"

Apollo sniffled and answered her. "I try not to…"

"You have to then. I got that as a present from my auntie, and I loved it very much, but then when I went back from school that Christmas Eve I saw you in front of it, the inside parts that made it work were scattered on the floor. I cried the minute I saw it broken, I ran for my mom and told on you right?" I laughed, "When I brought my mom to where it happened we saw you kneeling down, trying to fix it through thick tears. But mom went up to you with that motherly smile of hers and put her arm around you. She kept on telling you ,"it's okay, it's okay" over and over again. Then she carefully picked up the pieces and went to sit on the couch and placed the pieces on the coffee table. We watched her as she put the pieces together one by one and when it seemed like hours and all the pieces were inside she closed the lid, winded the box and you know what… it worked." She said, her last words coming out quietly.

There was a thick silence before Apollo looked at you.

"How did she fix it like that?"

She looked at him blankly. Black to brown.

"…She worked at a music box store."

It would be difficult to describe what Apollo's face looked like, but if it were a sound, it would go, "diiiing"

The attorney looked away in embarrassment, "Oh, yeah forgot…"

"Well, okay back to the matter at hand…"

Apollo's eyes looked at her again, the redness and puffiness seemed to lessen but one could still easily tell that he had been crying.

Rhian continued her statement, like a witness in court. "Take in mind… that story… keep in mind that something as complicated as a broken music box can be repaired through the right way and care. The same thing can apply for what's going on between you and Lamiroir."

Apollo sighed, "Trucy… I bet she knew before Lamiroir even told her."

He looked at his arm, where his bracelet should have been but it was inside Rhian's pocket. "I have more power than her… but I wasn't able to see it. When she said that, the way she sounded … my bracelet didn't feel…"

Apollo struggled for his words, but he sighed in defeat.

"It isn't normal when someone you barely knew says she's your mother… This world isn't all rainbows. There are things you just can't embrace right away…"

Apollo slumped his upper body down to look at the ground. Rhian looked at him the whole time, every second of it like lead was entering her heart. She spoke softly as a reply, but enough for him to hear. "Why you didn't see it… maybe because you never bothered to perceive it at the first place, and sure you can't be gullible but Lamiroir speaks what is true. You can ask me as many times as you want for me to show proof."

Apollo didn't respond, he was busy making the words sink in to him, even if he was a lawyer he accepted to fact he couldn't find answers own his own.

Rhian was suffocating in the atmosphere that was silence and stood up. She readied her violin the way she always did, The notes displayed in her mind, she found herself playing "You Raise Me Up."

She closed her eyes, sinking her violin into the song, every note sounded so clear and celestial. She felt Apollo's eyes welling up once again as the melody kept on going. The sunset melting in the distance, nature was quiet. The only omitted sound was music from her instrument. Apollo's mind soared through many dimensions of his memory, looking upon a young woman with green eyes and brown hair, cradling a baby with brown hair and brown eyes to match. The concrete was refreshed by salty tears.

You raise me up… to more than I can be…

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The song finished as Rhian bowed the last note down. She felt exhausted after just one song. But when she played it, it was different from how she played it before.

She carefully placed her violin to the ground and slowly bent down to Apollo, who's eyes were back to the state Rhian found them in. She reached from her pocket and gently grabbed the young man's arm, sliding his bracelet into a snug fit, it's bronze color soaking in the seeping light of the sunset. She squeezed his hand as he looked at her again, the eyes of the young boy she knew from before somehow there again. Rhian smiled.

"Go Apollo. To your mother."

Apollo smiled for the first time since she saw him. He slowly got up, pulling Rhian along with him and embraced her with all he could muster. The musician was shocked at his gesture of gratitude, but returned the hug nonetheless.

"Rhian, thank you." He said with the orange tinge of the sky glowing from his eyes. He pulls away, squeezes both her hands and tells her, "wish me luck." And in a moment Apollo was nowhere in sight.

Rhian Rosamond was left there, listening to the fast footsteps of Apollo vanish into the distance. She sat down on the stairs next to her violin. She could only smile. Maybe she figured out why she was named Ventana…

She was a window to new hopes.

It sounded cliché in her mind. But it felt like it fitted so well.

There was hope again, and she wouldn't have it in any other way.

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SORA:….. I did it…

Nick: Not quite, you still have to do the other chap-

SORA: I know…. I know no need to remind…

Well, first of, forgive me of my hiatus, there wasn't much time to write even a sentence nowadays ^^"
I hope this chapter was worth the wait… forgive me of anything that's wrong here -_-

Don't worry my mission with this isn't over!