Gil Nothos stood as Alexei entered, extending a four-fingered hand. They shook, a firm, familiar gesture between two old acquaintances.
"Guild Master Alexei," Gil said, his voice a smooth, low baritone.
"Maestro Gil," Alexei replied, his own voice a deep rumble. "I am sorry I came uninvited."
"Nonsense," Gil said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I am too old to invite someone. Either they come here on their own, or they do not come at all." His pale, silver eyes then shifted to the young woman standing respectfully behind her father. "Oh, hello. I believe I have seen you when you were as tiny as Alexei's arm before."
Juno bowed her head slightly. "Good morning, Maestro."
Gil led them into his grand, sunlit living room, a space of minimalist elegance and breathtaking views of Sela's lush gardens. In one corner, a magnificent grand piano sat, its polished black surface gleaming like a pool of dark water, pristine and untouched. Juno's eyes were immediately drawn to it.
"You play, child?" Gil asked, noticing her gaze.
"Ah, no," Juno said quickly, a faint blush on her cheeks. "It is just... my friend plays."
Gil let out a soft, noncommittal chuckle. A servant droid glided silently into the room and served them all cups of steaming Teebu. As Juno took a polite sip, her mind immediately made the comparison. It was high-quality, of course, the best money could buy. But Dorian's was still better.
"So," Gil said, getting straight to the point. "What makes you come all this way, Guild Master?"
"Oh no, it is not me," Alexei said, holding up his hands. "I am merely here as an introducer."
Gil's white eyebrows rose slightly as he turned his full attention to Juno. "So you are the one who has business with me, little miss?"
Juno sat up straighter, her nervousness replaced by a focused determination. "Yes," she said, her voice clear and steady. "I have come here to give you my demo song. I want your professional opinion on it."
Gil looked at Alexei, then back at Juno. "Your daughter is a singer? I thought she was a Solar."
"Can I not be both?" Juno countered, a hint of steel in her voice.
"Well," Gil said, his tone turning clinical and detached. "There have been many singers with Solar abilities. But none of them last long. A single combat injury, even a minor one, can damage and alter your vocal cords in a whole host of different ways."
Alexei let out an exasperated sigh. "Just hear her out, please, Gil. I have been badgered by her for two whole days."
A small, amused smile touched Gil's lips as he looked at the powerful Apex Guild Master, reduced to an exasperated father. He nodded slowly. "Alright. I have about half an hour before I need to go. Let us hear it."
Juno's face lit up. She quickly tapped on her heliopad and handed a pair of high-fidelity headphones to Maestro Gil. He took them, his expression neutral, and placed them over his ears.
Juno took a deep breath and pressed play.
Gil was not expecting to be impressed. He listened as a favor to an old acquaintance, to humor a child. He leaned back, his expression a mask of professional neutrality. Alexei and Juno watched, holding their breath.
The first sound was a piano. Just two chords, a minor vamp, played with a deliberate, somber touch.
Gil's first thought was purely analytical: Simple. Brooding. A statement of intent. It was ominous, but he was not yet impressed. Many a mediocre song had begun with a moody piano. It was a common trick to feign depth.
Then, the low strings began to creep in from the shadows. The sonic space expanded, a dark, rich texture filling the silence around the simple piano line. His impression shifted slightly. This was not the sound of a bedroom producer. This felt like the sound of a scoring stage. It had scale. His professional curiosity, a beast that had long been dormant, was piqued. His skepticism, however, remained fully intact.
And then, the voice.
It entered low in the register, full of a smoky, almost baritonal weight that was surprising coming from the young woman sitting across from him. "This is the end..." she began. The lyrics were direct, the delivery intimate, conspiratorial. She was not singing at him; she was confiding in him.
The orchestra remained a dark, powerful current beneath her voice, never overwhelming it. Gil found himself, unconsciously, leaning forward an inch in his seat. The tension was building, but it was a slow, controlled burn.
At this point, he was still waiting for the flaw, the moment the discipline would break, the moment it would all collapse into predictable, amateurish melodrama.
The percussion entered, not with a crash, but with a steady, marching heartbeat. The orchestra began to swell, a wave of sound gathering its strength. Here it is, he thought, a flicker of grim satisfaction in his mind. The inevitable, overwrought chorus.
And then it hit.
"Let the sky fall..."
The voice did not just get louder; it ascended with astonishing power. It was a controlled detonation, not a hysterical shriek. His critical ear, honed over a century and a half, immediately latched onto the technique behind that iconic leap to the word "Sky-fall." It was surprisingly clean. It was supported. This was not shouting. This was a singer who understood their instrument.
He listened, no longer a passive critic, but an active analyst, dissecting the performance. The power was not coming from her throat; it was coming from her core. The control was remarkable. He had heard seasoned professionals, veterans of the galactic stage, who could not manage a leap like that with such precision.
Simultaneously, the orchestra roared to life. The brass section, the full force of the strings, it was immense. At this precise moment, Gil's professional skepticism began to crumble, replaced by a grudging, then growing, admiration. This was not just a trendy Accord song with a string pad layered on top. This was a meticulously crafted piece of cinematic music. This had been built. The composer knew not just how to write a melody, but how to construct a world of sound around it.
After the colossal impact of the chorus, the arrangement pulled back for the second verse. This, for Gil, was a crucial test. Many an amateur could build to a loud crescendo, but could they regain the intimacy after such a display of force?
It did. The dynamics shifted back down with absolute confidence. The voice was quiet again, conspiratorial, but it now carried the memory of the power it had just unleashed. This demonstrated a masterful command of dynamics, a quality sorely lacking in most modern Accord music, which was often just a solid, unrelenting block of maximum volume designed to grab the listener's attention through brute force. This track, however, was breathing.
The bridge arrived, and with it, a new sense of urgency. A choir entered, almost spectral at first, a chorus of ghostly voices that added a near-religious, epic quality to the music. The stakes were raised. This was no longer a personal song; it was an anthem for something much larger.
This built into the final choruses, each one more colossal than the last. The orchestra was at a full, magnificent cry, the choir was soaring to impossible heights, and through it all, the singer was holding nothing back, yet she remained in complete and utter command of her instrument. It was a tidal wave of sound, overwhelming in the most magnificent way. Gil felt a ghost of a feeling he had not experienced in decades: awe.
And then, as the storm of the climax subsided, it resolved back to where it began: that lone, haunting, two-chord piano motif. The circle was complete. The story had been told.
The music faded into silence.
Gil sat perfectly still for a long moment, the world outside the headphones feeling distant and muted. Slowly, almost reverently, he took the headphones off. The sudden, profound silence of the room felt heavy, changed by the sonic journey he had just experienced. His impassive Gunnossian face betrayed nothing, but his mind was reeling.
He placed the headphones carefully on the table. He did not look at Juno, whose face was a mask of nervous anticipation. He did not look at Alexei, who was watching him with a guarded curiosity.
His final impression was clear. He had begun the journey expecting an amateur, likely another generic Accord song designed for mass consumption. He was left with the distinct and undeniable impression of having listened to a superb piece of symphonic craftsmanship. It had not faltered. It had not collapsed. It had delivered on its initial promise and then exceeded it at every single turn. His skepticism was not just answered; it was silenced.
He placed the headphones gently on the table, his silver eyes, for the first time, showing a sharp, intense focus. He looked directly at Juno.
"Who's the composer?"
…
Meanwhile, the composer, Dorian, was in his room, hunched over his heliopad, a giddy, unhinged grin on his face. He was looking at his first week's earnings from Echoflow and The Void, a steady, growing stream of digital credits flowing directly into his account.
"Hehehehehehe," he giggled to himself, the sound a little manic.
"Stop laughing alone, Dorian," Leo's voice came from the gaming desk, where it was diligently compiling the latest bug fixes for Stardew Valley. "If you have got nothing to do, help me with this."
"Shh, shhhh," Dorian waved a dismissive hand, not looking away from the beautiful, rising numbers. "I already gave you the outline. Now stop complaining, I have got money to count."
"Wow," Leo stated flatly. "I did not know I had a greedy owner."
"Hehehe, well, nice to meet you then," Dorian cackled. "Hahahaha."
He leaned back, his mind racing with possibilities. The daily one-hundred pull on the Stardew banner was now a reliable source of high-quality minerals. He could sell a handful every week through his "farmer" persona, giving him a steady influx of untraceable, physical credits. The revenue from his game and song was his legitimate, digital income, tied to his real name. And most importantly, the Gacha had set them free from the tyranny of food blocks. They could now eat real, delicious food at every single meal.
His thoughts turned to their apartment. The lower levels had been tense lately, the Accord's presence more heavy-handed than ever. Should he move them? He quickly dismissed the thought. No, he could not. His income was good, life-changing even, but it was not nearly enough to afford a place in the mid-levels, not yet.
He pulled out his notebook and started to plan his goals for the next year. First, move the family. Second, start thinking about another income stream. He opened Stellarcast and began searching for animation tutorials. His mind was already buzzing with the stories he could tell, worlds he could bring to life.
He quickly saw that most of the tutorials were heavily reliant on AI-assistance, which he wanted to avoid. But he did find something useful, something incredible. A new piece of hardware called a "Creative Desk." It was a new release, a professional-grade tool used by movie directors to map out shots and even create complex animations. It was exactly what he needed. He scrolled down to find the price.
His heart stopped. He stared at the number, then stared again, his giddy mood evaporating in an instant.
"Holy shit," he whispered. "I would have to save my money for years."
He slumped back in his chair, the weight of the galaxy settling back onto his shoulders. It was not the time yet. His music and his one small game would have to be enough, for now. He felt a familiar, bitter sadness creeping back in.
Then, he paused. He thought of his father, working his life away in the dark mines. He thought of Lyra and Marcus, their entire world confined to this sunless apartment and the grimy streets of the lower levels. He realized, with a sudden, painful clarity, that he had never been on a holiday with them. Not once.
All his plans were about the future, about escaping. He had not thought about just... living.
He reached for a small, square memo-pad on his desk, pulled off a single sheet, and wrote down three simple words. He stuck the note to the corner of his 16K monitor, a small, bright promise in a room full of grand, impossible plans.
It read: Holiday when Dad back.
…
Gil stared at Juno, his silver eyes unblinking. "You are telling me," he said, his voice a low, dangerous calm, "that the composer is a boy your age?"
"One year younger," Juno corrected him, her voice firm and proud.
The statement seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Then, something happened that Alexei had not seen in decades. Gil Nothos, the White Beast, the jaded maestro of the galaxy, was hit by a reality check so profound it was like being struck by an asteroid. He stared blankly at Juno, then at Alexei, then back at Juno. And then, he laughed.
It was not a polite chuckle. It was a full, genuine, unrestrained laugh that came from deep in his chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated shock and delight.
Alexei, completely bewildered, looked from the laughing Gunnossian to his daughter. "Is it that bad?"
"No, no, Guild Master," Gil said, finally catching his breath, wiping a tear from the corner of his cybernetic eye. "You misunderstand. It has been a long, long time since I have felt this way." He shook his head in disbelief. "I thought you had brought me a song composed by one of my old colleagues. I had not heard this piece before, so I assumed it was from one of them. But it turns out... it is a boy."
He looked down at his own four-fingered hands, a mix of pale flesh and gleaming chrome. He closed them into a fist, then slowly opened them again. "If only he had been born in my time," he murmured to himself, a profound sense of wistful regret in his voice. He then looked at Juno and Alexei, and for the first time, his smile was not one of professional courtesy, but of genuine, unadulterated joy. "I would have had a great time with him."
"You can now," Juno said, her voice cutting through his nostalgic reverie.
Alexei was taken aback by his daughter's blunt response, but Gil just looked at her, his expression intrigued.
"If you want to have a great time with it, you can do it now," Juno continued, her voice filled with a powerful, unshakeable conviction. "Help him with the orchestra. You are a top maestro, a legendary conductor, the White Beast pianist. Help my friend, and become the instrument you have longed for."
Gil's smile faded, his expression becoming completely serious. The air in the room shifted from a friendly chat to a high-stakes negotiation. "Does the composer want this?" he asked, his voice now a low, professional growl.
"That demo was played with a producer's desk," Juno said, her words a direct, calculated challenge. "Imagine what it could be if it was your old orchestra playing it."
The name of his old symphony, a ghost he had not summoned in years, hung in the air between them. Gil picked up his teacup, his movements slow and deliberate as he tried to calm the sudden, violent storm of emotion in his chest. The thought of playing such a masterpiece, of becoming the instrument for such a song... it was a temptation he had not felt in a century. But to do that, he would have to re-gather the members of his long-disbanded orchestra, a task that felt as monumental as moving a planet.
**A/N**
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~🧣KujoW
**A/N**