Today I am one of the many summoners to proudly host Sona in their roster. My selection is fairly small. I'm the new guy around the Institute, as my friends will tell others. During the new year party, a familiar sense of revival filled my lungs and all I could exhale was brash optimism. Sona has an army of fiercely devoted fans among the summoning community. A division of their troupe of endorsement happened to be celebrating with the rest of us at the stone garden. As we marveled at fireworks and ate fried vegetables, I brought up the subject of my coming interview. They all immediately showered me with congratulations and reminisced of their own interviews. "It's like you've known her all your life" one woman acclaimed. "If I could, I'd hang out with her all the time. But then she's mute, so I don't know."
I didn't know either, until just today. Four days after today, Sona's visit to the Institute was to end with my interview. We met for the second time outside the reflection chamber at 6 am.
Outside the room Sona and I exchanged smiles. I felt no need to explain the procedure again-she had her time with another summoner some days before and the process is straightforward enough. Caught off guard by my silence, the musician raised an eyebrow offering a queue for me to start talking pleasantries I coughed nervously and remembered why I was there. Trying to be prompt, I stuttered something like "If you're ready, Ms. Buvelle." To be honest, I sounded like an absolute tool. Still, Sona was humanely considerate after all and, to my relief, nodded her head in confirmation as if nothing was out of place. My mind was clouded in anxiety, yet felt light and airy. Like in many instances before, I kept running out of things to say. So really, my head wasn't in a fog. I was the fog, if that makes sense. Fog is the stuff clouds are made of. Up close, the sun shines through better.
The chamber is dimly lit in a familiar purple-bluish shade. In the center of the room are two seats sitting back to back. Miscellaneous plaques and notices can be read for reference if one were to switch on a few more lamps. They are purposely left dark to increase concentration. Summoners and champions use these rooms for practicing summoning magic in a safe environment. That is a relative term, for particularly volatile champions must be restrained in some way or another. Me and my colleagues jokingly observed days before that Sona wouldn't be of any danger. And to a slight hint of disheartenment from me, we were right.
We both sat on the two stone seats facing back to back. Looking over my shoulder I noticed that same perfect posture from the concert. I straightened my back and shoulders. It felt good, empowering. Try working on your posture sometime, reader. With this, I concentrated on my magic. While incantations are part of the manual, verbalizing them only serve to help one focus. It rarely worked for me-I always had trouble articulating them.
In no time, the spell was complete. I had encompassed my mind in the swirling ball of blue energy we call a 'client'. I parsed for a signal, sending rings of magic across the room pulse after pulse. When a summoner does this, they are briefly at the mercy of any mind in the general area, as they can 'catch the wave' for themselves. Sona grasped it with a surprising eagerness. This business I assumed was so mundane to her, as I supposed was with any champion of the League. At this point I precariously started to lose my physical self. Talk to any summoner about out-of-body experiences because they can describe it better than I can. You become distant psychologically, losing the body's sensation along with the sentimental care for it.
As I met with Sona's mind I expected pain. After summoning Singed so many times the sensation of scarred flesh is familiar. However, this experience was something very, very alien.
I was assaulted with an enveloping awareness of sound. What came at me first was Sona's heartbeat. Rhythmically her body acted as a metronome to a softer beat, washing in and out like waves on a beach. The walls reverberated everything, and I discovered that Sona can see it happening. As heat distorts light, so does sound distort the still air. I tried to identify that beat which ticked so harmoniously with hers. It was water, a thick liquid, passing through something muffled and coarse. Her heartbeat. I felt her voice. My mind couldn't comprehend hearing a voice, but I felt it like a dream resurfaced in memory. What she said comforted me overall, yet unsettled my nerves with a haunting familiarity.
"I hear you."
Thumping now was the sound that played alongside Sona's heartbeat. I sensed she was grasping something warm and coarse. It was my own limp hand, pulsing with assurance.