"Anise, if you would be so kind," Jade gestured to Ion with a wave of his hand as they cleared the steps and the girl saluted, a grin stretching her lips. Then she took the Fon Master by the arm and led him away. Loren stared after them, somewhat confused before he realized it was Yulia City and of course the Fon Master would have his own rooms. He raised his hand towards his head in a habitual gesture to fix his hat then stopped when he remembered it wasn't there.

Right. He left it in Baticul and he'd forgotten to pick up his spare in Daath. Natalia chuckled quietly beside him and he scowled, knowing he'd been caught. Embarrassed, he let his arm drop and refused to meet anyone's eyes as he separated from the group.

"We leave when the Fon Master wakes," Jade called after him and he waved to acknowledge the man.

Eventually, he found himself at the docks, standing just outside the protective barrier of water and staring out into the bleak horizon. The song that had followed him from beneath the city was stronger there, more than just a faint resonance between fonons.

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the wind. They whispered to him, emotions lingering at the edge of his mind and he breathed with them, embracing them. There were words, they were talking to him, begging and he found he couldn't deny them. His lips parted and he gave them voice.

"Adored child of sound, let your tune flow free."

Fonons snapped and twisted and his breath tore from his chest as they arced into the distance. Stars burst in his vision, nearly blinding him and they cleared in time for him to see the fonons come together in an even larger form of Grand Discord. His arms dropped from where they'd risen and he swallowed thickly.

They definitely weren't seventh fonons.

Numbly, he turned on his heel and headed back towards the city proper. Fear curled low in his stomach and bile licked at the back of his throat. He swallowed again.

The fonons, they sang of comfort and acceptance, something he had longed for since his creation. But in that single moment he'd also heard the undertones. He'd heard the malice and the strings of violence and he wondered just how sentient those… things were.

He breathed harshly through his nose then forced himself to slow before he broke out into a full run. He could feel them lingering behind him, following despite his efforts to push them away. They were drawn to him, for whatever reason, and he wished that the thing that had practically given them to him beneath the city had decided to take them away instead.

Jade was right, euphony was not a word that could describe them. They wished for death and destruction. Revenge.

He stumbled sideways, lurching against the guard rail and grasping at it with suddenly weak fingers. He slid slowly to the ground, breathing hard against the growing pain in his chest.

But that didn't make sense. What use did revenge have for them? What would be the point and who was it against in the first place?

He pressed his forehead to the bars of the rail, hoping the metal would cool his heated skin. His arms were going numb, why were his arms going numb? He pulled his legs up in an attempt to get the pain in his chest to ease and it did for a moment but it quickly grew and expanded beyond what it had been.

He moaned and pressed harder against the metal if only to have something else to concentrate on because this was worse than anything he had ever experienced. Worse than anytime he had passed out even because at least then he wasn't plagued with the overwhelming pain. By the Score, why hadn't he passed out yet?

Help, he needed help. And to get help he needed to stand. But he couldn't, he couldn't even move his fingers, oh, Lorelei, what was this? What was going on, this had never happened before. This was it, wasn't it? This was how he was going to die, frozen, unable to move, unable to even breathe. He couldn't find the breath to even shout; what a miserable way to die.

He'd gotten too relaxed, drunk on the feeling of being able to do more than exist. All he could hear was the blood rushing through his ears and his rapid breaths and he wondered dimly when that would stop. When would his body finally give out on him? He didn't know how much more he could take.

Score, how long had it been? How long had he been set there practically paralyzed? Five minutes? Ten? A whole damned hour? If only he could breathe properly. How like his useless body to give out on him at the most inopportune times. And this was probably it. No more Loren, failed replica of Duke Fabre's son, finally dead despite his best efforts.

But he didn't want to die. Not like this.

He heard distant shouting and briefly wondered who had screwed up. They were loud if he could hear them from that far away. He couldn't tell what they were saying though, not when he could barely keep his eyes open enough to see. Then something brushed against him, his locked limbs impossibly tensing further and he groaned as much as he could at the burst of pain.

Whatever had touched him didn't go away. His heart raced, pounding harder than ever as he tried to get away. This was it, he was going to die. Whoever had found him was going to put him out of his misery. Do the world a favour with one less replica in it.

He didn't remember when he finally passed out.

Utterly bored, Luke sat on the floor of the sitting room, a small stack of paper on the coffee table in front of him and a pencil in hand. His head was propped in his other hand as he scratched nonsensical lines on the surface and contemplated what to do next.

They hadn't been able to figure out what the spirits had wanted, unfortunately, though Luke couldn't be too upset about it. He had his head to himself again. Generally. He frowned slightly and dropped the pencil to scratch around one of the fresh bandages on his arm.

"Come on," Asch directed from behind him, launching a balled up shirt at the back of Luke's head, "I've figured out what we can do while we wait for your friends to come get you."

"How do you know they're even coming?" Luke grumbled, abandoning his useless doodles to pull the dark fabric over his head. He stood up, tugging at places where the shirt had gotten caught on his bandages before turning around only to find Asch staring at him, brows furrowed. "What?"

"You honestly think that they'd leave you to rot down here?" he said after a moment of consideration.

"Well," Luke gave a stilted shrug, remembering the aftermath of Akzeriuth and the moment everyone turned their backs, "they all just put up with me, I think, since I can help lower the lands safely." Asch scowled, his lip curling as he turned on his heel and left the room, moving quickly down the hall. Luke followed after him at a slower pace, not really concerned about his reaction.

He went into the other room, the one bare of everything including carpet and wallpaper and closed the door behind him. Asch's socked feet paced circles across the room and Luke watched him, just a little bit confused.

"They never let you talk, did they?" Luke blinked at the abrupt question and, if anything, Asch's pace seemed to increase. "They just let you suffer in silence, wilfully ignoring something that was so blatantly obvious." His hand clenched into a fist and instead of looping back around, his arm flew out and cracked his fist into the drywall. Luke jumped, staring bewildered at the hole left behind.

"Asch, what?"

"Just tell me, did they let you talk?" Asch's gaze was intense in his fury, so easily felt at the edge of Luke's mind yet none of it was directed at him.

"Um," he swallowed, eyes darting away for a moment as he backed up half a step because all that anger was still daunting. "Not really," he admitted with a shrug as he recalled Natalia's abrupt topic changes whenever the conversation would start to veer towards Akzeriuth. Or Anise's distinct discomfort about it whenever they'd be talking alone. The guilt made him stop trying altogether.

"Jade would usually be awake after a nightmare, though, so he'd sit with me," he said as if it would justify everything else. Asch closed his eyes and lifted his face towards the ceiling as he took a deep breath.

"And what about Guy?"

"He'd usually tell me not to think about it."

Asch stared blankly at the ceiling, unable to convey how utterly furious he was. "Useless," he muttered to the plaster, "completely useless. Remind me to punch him in the face when we get out of here."

"Please don't," he said somewhat weakly, "he tries his best." Asch's blank stare turned on him and he quickly waved his hands, "A-anyway, never mind that! What did you want to do in here?" Asch sighed and allowed the topic to end, if only for the moment. He dropped down to sit cross legged on the floor.

"I'm going to teach you how to channel fonons."

"Willow?" Maple slowly opened her eyes as she raised her head. At the center of their circle, the elder stood, her arms falling from where they'd been clasped in prayer.

"Who was that?" James whispered in awe. He broke their circle, running forward to clutch at the elder's skirts.

"An unforeseen variable, one more suitable than the first," she patted the top of the child's head the signalled for the rest to join her. "Ignore the oath breaker for now," she directed as they approached, "try and contact this one. He managed to hear our song without our attention; perhaps he'll be more receptive."

"The oath breaker is protected anyhow," Asher rumbled and crossed his arms loosely over his chest, "I doubt we'd be able to reach him again."

"No matter," Willow waved a gnarled hand, "if we can garner more ground with this one then we might be able to use him as a vessel."

"What happened, though?" Camille rocked on her heels, her hand joined with Valerie's, "how come we never noticed him before?"

"At this point, it doesn't matter," Castor all but scoffed and Bella pinched his arm. He jerked away with a glare then crossed his arms petulantly. "Those idiots broke the seal," he said, taking a half step away from her, "we're free to leave."

"Ah, but it's because they broke the seal that we were able to find him," if a smile could be disapproving, Willow managed it as she looked at the teen. "Come," her hand snapped up and her followers fell still, "we leave immediately. There's a lot of ground to cover."

Initially, Guy was surprised when he finally found Anise at Loren's side. Then he considered the odd sort of attachment she seemed to have developed for him over the short time they were together and the outcome didn't seem very surprising at all. He hovered on the steps, barely able to see the top of Anise's head over the edge of the bed, and remembered when Luke had been in his place not so long ago. He breathed a soft sigh.

"I would've figured you'd be with Ion," his voice was low as he came up over the top of the stairs and took in the girl fully. She sat in the single chair next to the bed, Tokunaga in her lap and a needle and thread in hand. Her motions were methodical as she stitched the small tears closed.

"Ion doesn't need me there," she muttered as she tied a knot and bit the thread off. "Besides," she tied a new knot and started on another tear, "I don't have that right anymore."

"You're still his friend." Anise shook her head.

"He'll be fine," she insisted, "he only needs to sleep. He doesn't need me there for that." She tugged her thread through and frowned when the strands twisted. Guy stepped closer, watching as she slowly untangled them.

After a moment, she spoke again. "I've seen him around the cathedral, sometimes in the main area but usually in the lower quarters," it took Guy a moment for him to realize she meant Loren. "He used to practice the sword years ago but stopped when it became too strenuous, I think. I remember father giving him something one day, some sort of ointment or muscle cream, something along those lines. 'It'll help you relax,' he said and Loren was so reluctant to take it, it was almost sad the way father practically had to force it on him.

"'I promise, I promise,' father repeated until Loren finally took it with his own promise to use it all. I didn't see him for almost a month after that. He was just another nameless face in the sea of acolytes, I figured he'd been sent off and stationed in another city like so many others. But he wasn't, he-" Guy didn't know if the sound that came out of her was supposed to be a laugh or a sob and his brows shot up.

"When we found him, over by the docks, I remembered. I was in one of my exploring moods, running along the lower levels like it was an entirely new area I had to discover and I saw him. He was slumped against the wall, pale as a ghost, shaking and so unbelievably warm, I can't believe I never remembered before!" She went to slam her fists against her knees, Tokunaga clutched tight between her fingers, when she remembered the needle in her other hand and stopped mid-motion. Instead she threw her head back and seemed to physically fight the tears from forming.

"The stuff father gave him, it made him sick, so sick," she said to the ceiling and Guy did his best to ignore the crack in her voice. "I don't know if he was allergic to something in it or what but I could smell it on him, it was so strong. Like his body didn't know what to do with it. He remembered me, though. 'Oliver's daughter, right?' he said to me with that same smile that Luke gives Ion and I didn't know what to do so I just nodded. He put his hand on my shoulder and he apologized, the fool.

"'Tell your father I won't be needing that cream anymore,' he told me, that stupid, stupid cream. Then he got up and went back to his room and looking back on it now, I'm surprised he didn't fall flat on his stupid fool face, he was swaying so hard!" She glared at the ceiling with a firm set to her jaw as she did her best to ignore the few tears she didn't manage to hold back.

"But I did as he asked. I told father and he never tried to force anything on Loren again, not that he ever got the chance. The only time I would see him after that was whenever I bothered to go below and I always remembered him as that one guy father almost killed. Then I forgot and he was back to being another nameless face," she looked at Guy with a sad smile.

"I remember before, every time I saw him, he carried a sword. He was one of the few acolytes who did and I guess that was what helped me remember him. Without it, he became like every other acolyte.

"I just," she took a deep breath then furiously wiped the tears away with her sleeve, "I keep remembering that moment. How, when he looked at me, he seemed so large and so small at the same time and I wondered why he didn't ask for help. I didn't help him then. I didn't know if I could. But this time, I can at least make sure he's not alone."

"Anise," Guy breathed softly and she waved her hand with a shake of her head.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine," she bowed her head, turning her concentration back to Tokunaga, "come get me when Ion wakes up. Hopefully Loren'll be awake then too."

"Alright," Guy agreed though he hesitated at the top of the stairs. "There's food," he said, "in the kitchens by Ion's room. I'll set some aside for the both of you."

"Thanks," Anise nodded but didn't turn and Guy descended the stairs.

Embrace our discord...