February’s challenge: write a less than 400 word sci-fi or fantasy story that involves music.
As always, creative liberty with the prompt is encouraged!
Hard mode: only use the word “the” six times.
Post your stories in the channel when you're done; one entry will be selected (providing we receive 3+ entries) to be put through the editing process and then read aloud on Mythos & Ink's podcast, Wayfarer's Guide to Worldbuilding.
You've got until 11:59pm CST on February 29th to submit your piece!
Written March 22nd, 2024
As a wizard, you know what magic is. Magic is equations, careful rune structures and specific wordings of spells. Magic is structured, systematic, dependable and predictable. Magic is science, just as much as chemistry or engineering.
But magic is not, and can never be, magical again. You used to be enchanted by the ability to make something seemingly appear from nothing, but you now memorized the transitive properties required to change a nonliving item into another. The predictability, dependability, ensures that nothing is surprising or exciting anymore.
But this strange musician in a run-down inn near the outskirts of the city is muddying those facts. Your paperwork sits forgotten on the table, kept in place by your elbows as you lean towards the performer. Her energy is infectious, and there is no doubt in her musical talent as she serenades her audience. But alongside her enchanting voice and expressions are illusions portraying the story she spins, accentuating reality instead of shifting it and she does it all with no training.
There are no incantations, no measured movements, just the natural flow of her voice and body with detailed imagery dancing around her. The illusions seem to multiply the more you watch, which is just as incredible as it is incredulous. You might be charmed, but you find you do not care; you must know this woman and figure out how she does such magic.
After she finishes her performance there is raucous applause, and you watch, bewildered, as she returns behind the bar as if she did not just shatter your worldview. You barely remember to gather your belongings before you stumble over, clumsy in your haste but determined in your purpose.
You're sure you look a mess, wild and scattered as you collapse onto a barstool. When she notices you, you sit in terse silence before you eloquently blurt out, "How?!"
She looks you over, takes in your robes and scrolls, then smiles wide and does jazz hands as she replies, "Magic!~"