Weightlessness. Emptiness. Ravess found herself caught in a void. Dark and cold. Her hair was set wild and free, and slowly waved around in little clumped spikes. Some shifted over her face, others bent over and around her cheeks. Her expression was peaceful, almost taking in the solitude. This solitude would break when Ravess exhaled, as their air that left her lungs would bubble and travel upwards, away from her. Her core quickly filled with panic, and she started to flail her limbs, trying to rise from her surroundings, which had started to put pressure on her. Submerged, with air quickly dwindling, Ravess paddled her legs with excruciating force and tenacity. A hand from underneath her gripped one of her ankles, and slowly started to pull her down. Another would grab her opposing shin. The being kept rising its hands up her knees, thighs, and finally each of her sides. She violently thrashed about, trying desperately to break free with squinted, pained eyes. The being that had a hold of her started to glow from its own eyes. Ravess threw her head to the side. Desperate. The light slowly coaxed her out of her frenzy. She soon twisted her head straight again, eyelids struggling to stay shut until they finally opened for good. Ravess stared at the eyes for an amount of time that seemed to both be blistering short, and an eternity at the same time. She found the being's tail, as opposed to legs, lift up behind it. She felt it gently exert and angling force on her, before swimming at full force down into the depths, pulling Ravess deeper with it.
Ravess awoke with a jolt, and what appeared to be fall into her bunk. It bounced a couple of times from her sudden waking. Taking a moment to examine her surroundings and to determine its safety, Ravess sighed in relief and climbed out of her bunk.
Almost half an hour after climbing out of bed, Ravess left her bunk and entered the bridge. She was already properly dressed, in her standard wear that reminds one of her Cyclonian days. Her hair was already made, concealer applied, and lip gloss impeccably worn. On the bridge was the rest of the crew, eating their breakfast. Everyone apart from Leila were at least halfway through their pots of porridge, whilst Leila, hair unkempt like the disturbed dead, and face dripping in tire, elected a singular cup of coffee. Stan, eating his porridge whilst at the controls, greeted Ravess with polite happiness. Ravess reciprocated with a more subdued response. Scanning her eyes across the bridge, She ended up seeing a portion of porridge left aside for her. She quietly walked across the bridge and picked up the pot. As she did so, Rez spoke to her. 'Bad dream, perchance?' He asked.
'I'm a...well, I was a bad person. I reckon it's karma' Ravess resolved with indifference, taking a spoonful of her breakfast into her mouth. She bucked her head a little from its radiant warmth and swallowed it briskly. 'I hardly gave it any weight. It's a lost memory now' Ravess added. She nearly took another spoonful when she resumed her commanding role aboard the ship. 'Stan, how far are we from our destination?'
'If everything Lester has calculated is correct, we have until noon' Stan reported with military style delivery.
'Splendid!' Ravess rejoiced, renewed with drive. 'Once we finish with our meal, we can run through our set one more time' Hearing this, Rez wolfed down his porridged and quickly excused himself, heading to the door off of the bridge, and down the metal platform to the engine room.
The rest of the quintet finished up their refreshment, and gathered their instruments. After a moment to tune and warm up, Rez finally re-emerged onto the bridge, pulling out his cello from under his bunk and making his way back to the ensemble. 'Now then, now we're all together, let's begin' Ravess said, with determination and passion.
With the cruiser on autopilot, and the quintet playing their set, Ravess found herself coaching her ensemble with a heavy hand. Their already professional playing getting grilled for anything remotely amiss: a note just a little too flat; timings being just a little off; anything that could be improved was brought front and centre. The act reached the middle of their set after many false starts and re-plays, and for it, Ravess pulled Leila up to stand in front of the group. This piece was supposed to build up the tension, after the song before had hit one of the set's crescendoes, before moving to the next piece, and the second half that followed. The piece was meant to require one violin for most of the song. Leila was meant to take said spot, leaving Ravess to step in and transition the piece to the next number seamlessly. Although, Leila had never actually performed this piece for the crowd, stuck trying to nail it in practice. The frustration it had caused her had lead to her losing a little confidence in herself, expecially after not being able to have a chance to play it on Terra Klockstoppia, due to Ravess giving her the boot from co-lead before the end of the first song. Here, in the relative safety of the cruiser, Leila took in a deep breath as Ravess started to coach her. 'Get a feel of the rhythm, but don't jump the gun too early, you need to strike late on the first beat'
Rez and Stan started to play. Their bass lines came as a worbling effect as their volumes oscillated in unision. Soon, Rez broke away, sliding from mid range note down into his cello's low notes. Lester, and Stan found their cues, and perfectly cut in as Rez stopped, although Leila would overshoot hers, and started early on the next beat instead. Lester and Stan started by holding the same note, from different octaves. Leila held a note, too, although hers lied in the range of pitch that Lester and Stan had set, being a note or two lower than Stan. Lester and Stan then synced with eachother. Stan dropping a few semi-tones, rising one, then dropping a few more. Down almost a whole octave from the root note. Before climbing the notes he had played, back up the root again. Lester, whilst following Stan's rhythm, arpeggiated a series of triads, all minor or otherwise disharmonic when all the note are played together. This left Leila to her own segment to add some dynamism. She jumped up, down, then up a semi tone. She climbed another two notes, before doing a second climb that would take her violin's pitch higher. The pitch would crest. It would hold between this, and the tone below, before climbing again, reaching another high note. Leila's violin would then begin to repeat the melody she had played before, with this high note serving as the root. This time, when she crested to yet another high note, she arpeggiated herself a triad a couple of times before landing a screaming soprano of a final note. Holding it, and letting it wobble in intensity. Ravess eyed Lester and Stan one by one. Nodding at them to stop playing. Leila, however, was given a rolling hand gesture, making her continue this note for a painful amount of time until the bow finally run out of length.
'I said to strike late. Not to wait until the next beat' Ravess quietly iterated. Annoyance in her voice.
'I'm sorry, I-' Leila tried to speak. Ravess walked to her, making her step and lean back in fear.
'You know how difficult this piece is. That's because your part is a distraction to Stan and Lester, purely down to how your own rhythm can interfere' Ravess added, her stern voice slowly becoming indistinguishable from that of anger. Leila started to tremble.
'I haven't had the time to practice my cue with the rest of the quintet' Leila protested, voice cracking. Ravess paused, closing her eyes and gripping the bridge of her nose.
Taking a slow draw of breath, Ravess recomposed herself. 'Okay... It's okay. You've not come from the Cyclonian military. Perhaps I'll need to take a softer approach'
Lester, whilst seeing Ravess unknowingly chew Leila out, noticed something from the distance in front of the cruiser. Standing up, pointing, and pulling the attention away. 'Erm, I don't think that'll be happening right away' Ravess looked up, and out to see what Lester meant. She saw it too, a Terra in the distance. Small, entirely topped with a building and many piers to dock. 'Is this Terra Aquinos, comma- I mean, Ravess?'
'No' She replied, turning and looking at the building, with parked ships and a handful of folk stood outside in their cliques. 'This is Aquinos' link to the Atmos. An old tavern, The Sky Side Shanty' Ravess quickly turned about, walking back to her bunk. Making sure grab her violin as she did so. 'Stan! Set us down' She ordered.
'Yes Ma'am!' Stan replied, alert and almost happy at the order.