11: Free Will

As Lucas ducked and slipped out from beneath the swing of Chevalier’s warhammer, Alexandrie smiled placidly. She sat upon a stone wall at the edge of the opulent Dash’em’ali estate, feeling for changes to the music in her mind, listening to the rush and eddying of the water behind her. This hadn’t been how she’d learned to use La Chanson, but Chevalier was right: Lucas was a soldier. Perhaps the Song wanted him to make use of that. And as she watched, she could see what the young man had meant: the way he leaned one way but stepped another, the shapes he made on the ground, the patterns…they did look a lot like dance. She’d never looked at combat that way before - had only seen the pain and suffering it could bring. Without his weapons, Lucas may as well have been dancing with Chevalier. There was a rhythm to it, one that the automaton would allow the young man to fall into, before almost counterpointing with another step of his own.

Even as she smiled, though, she inwardly frowned and sighed in resignation. La Chanson said he was to use it. So use it he would. Whether he wanted to or not, he would inevitably use the music to do what he thought was best. And La Chanson trusted that. And she trusted La Chanson. So she trusted him.

She understood that what she was doing wasn’t strictly fair. She knew that he wouldn’t be able to go back once he’d tasted that connection. She’d heard his concerns about Free Will, about how he wanted to make his own decisions. She’d definitely heard how important they were to him. She simply didn’t care. Once he heard La Chanson, once he’d used the power it was offering, some if not all of those objections would fall away. He would do what La Chanson asked. She would make sure of it. 

Free Will, to the half-elf, didn’t truly exist. He would enjoy doing what La Chanson asked, because La Chanson rewarded those who did. She was living proof of that - had been raised in a beautiful world because of Grandmère’s service, even if she had been unable to do everything it asked. Free will, if it existed, wasn’t important. Lucas said that he had chosen his occupation. But he’d left, hadn’t he? Had crossed paths with her and La Chanson. Was that his own decision? How could he tell? 

If she had stayed home, she would have been married and engaged in business or community work or children. What was free will? The illusion of choice? How far did it go? Everyone worked a job - as part of a meritocracy, everyone had to give to the whole. Those who worked hardest would be promoted if they were good enough…not that Maman wasn’t good enough for La Chanson, of course, just that she wasn’t right for the task La Chanson needed to fulfil. And that was important too.

Even thinking of Maman in her position made her smile broader. Maman was careful and savvy and had an eye for precise detail, but the idea of Maman walking through mud was more outrageous than Alexa herself doing it. When Grandmère threw parties, Maman’s eye had ensured everything was just so. Just…perfect. By comparison, Alexa spent less time looking for perfection. Instead, Alexa…dreamed. She daydreamed. She nightdreamed. She loved Grandmère and Vee’s stories and…truthfully, she was grateful she had heard La Chanson. The dreams, the stories, the music…she was bred to wander. She was coming to realise that seeing the world was exactly what she’d wanted - needed to do. Or at least, that was the illusion. 

And that’s what it returned to. She had been raised on music and stories and people clutching at her, afraid she would leave. She hadn’t really any close friends her own age in Shining Capital, and Maman et Papa were restrictive of her movements, afraid (she could see now) that she would do exactly what she had. But were they scared of her choice? Or that La Chanson might make the choice to take her? What would have happened if she had told Maman et Papa in earnest that she heard La Chanson? That it wanted her to leave and that she would? Would they have restricted her more? Confined her? Would telling them have been an act of Free Will? Would it have worked?

For the hundredth or thousandth time, Alexa wished Grandmère were present. She had so many Questions.

Lucas had wanted to know why he’d been chosen. Why she had been. What difference would that knowledge make? Now - now that the act was done, what difference could it make? Surely now was the time to use what was given, not question the vast and difficult “why”. Why didn’t help people. Why didn’t accomplish anything. Why, to her, was like the concept of free will - it didn’t change her actions, and it was too late to go back and choose something different. The best thing for Lucas to do, in her opinion, was to make do with what he had been given.

And it started here. With Chevalier’s hammer rushing toward Lucas’ back, then side, then chest, then head, each movement faster, requiring the sweating young man to weave around the automaton faster and faster. She knew Chevalier wouldn’t hurt him. She knew how much control Chevalier had over himself and the hammer. More to the point, though, she knew that if there was an accident, she was there to heal. Before they’d left home, Chevalier had tried to persuade her to hit him with the power of La Chanson. After the incident with the rabbit, however, she had refused. She couldn’t control herself or La Chanson enough at the time to feel comfortable with deliberately hurting him, and had recoiled at even the suggestion.

Now, however, she could depend on La Chanson, just as she could depend on her own ability to manage that power - for the most part. In the end, she was still a teenager - one guided by the sentient Song of the World, perhaps - but teenagers got things wrong sometimes. Healing was something she knew she could do now, so she was there, hands poised, watching. In case Lucas moved in a way Chevalier didn’t expect and Chevalier did more than knock him with the hammer.

Nothing of the sort happened, of course, and as her mind wandered, her fingers twitched, and Alexandrie began to gently weave the magical essence of the world together. Motes of light began to form and she almost felt the velveteen delicacy of a petal before she realised what she was doing and dropped her hands back to her lap.

Ever since Aquideon had handed her that rose, she had been creating flowers of different shapes and sizes, but all with standard (as she knew it) rose colouring. The rose she had created the night before, the one in her house colours, was the first she created with no reference.

Why keep creating roses?

They were beautiful and dangerous and simple enough to create on the move. There was no use creating beds, or candles. Well, candles had a use, but they became very heavy. Roses she could tuck into the top of the scroll case she kept her sheet music in. Roses smelled and looked beautiful, and Alexandrie was growing a great appreciation for the way they grew in her hands, as well as the wilting, destructive process that would inevitably ensue. Destruction could be as beautiful as growth. The bloom of beginning and the frailty of ending were equally alluring, and something she could use to mark the passage of time as they travelled and acted at all hours of day and night.

But the four of them were going to be here for a while, and they were safe. She had some experimenting to do. And that made the teenager’s smile broader. Daydreaming and nightdreaming were all well and good, but the Song had granted her the ability to create the things she dreamed about. Aquideon and the Dash’am’ali family had granted her the safety to experiment. She would be very careful - as careful as she could be - not to destroy things in the house. She would be careful not to reveal too much about La Chanson, or the extent to which she could - 

Inward focus broken, Alexa laughed in surprise and shock as Lucas threw his hands up and music exploded in her mind, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Chevalier’s hammer hung, suspended as if by a barrier, above the soldier. For the first time, Alexandrie saw the majesty of La Chanson from the outside. Tears welled in her eyes as she laughed.

He had done it.