When it was time, at last, for Ulla and Signy to perform, they drifted to the center of the plain, fingers entwined.
Neither of their families was rich, but the girls had arrayed themselves as best they could for the occasion. In their hair they wore wreaths of salt lilies and small pearl combs they’d borrowed from their mothers. They had adorned their bodies with slivers of abalone shell, so that their torsos glittered and their tails flashed like treasure. Ulla looked well enough, still gray, still sullen, but Signy looked like a sun rising, her red hair splayed in a blazing corona. Ulla did not yet know how to name that color. She had never seen flame.
Ulla gazed at the crowd above her, around her. She could feel their curiosity like a questing tentacle, hear her name like a warbling, hateful melody.
Is that the girl? She’s positively gray.
Looks nothing like her mother or her father.
Well, she belongs to someone, unlucky soul.
Signy trembled too. She had chosen Ulla that day in the nautilus hall, drunk on the power they’d created together, and they had built a secret world for themselves where it did not matter that Signy was poor, or that she was pretty but not pretty enough to rise above her station. Here, before the sildroher and the royal family, the shelter of that world seemed very far away.
But Ulla and Signy were not the same frightened girls who had once cast each other bitter glances in class. Hands clasped tight, they lifted their chins.
The song began sweetly. Ulla's tail twitched, keeping the tempo, and she saw the king and queen nodding their heads in time high above. She knew they were already thinking of the feast to come. They were just polite enough not to show their boredom - unlike their sons.
Though Ulla had composed the spell, it had been Signy's idea, a daydream she had described to Ulla with giddy, fluttering hands, one they had embellished in lazy hours, warming themselves in the shallows.
Ulla let the song rise, and a series of slender, pearly arches began to form on the craggy plain. The floating crowd murmured its approval, thinking this was all the girls had to offer, two promising students who had, for some reason, been allowed to perform with the masters. The melody moved in simple escalating and then descending scales, creating symmetry for the sparkling paths that spread below them, and soon the new paths and colonnades formed the shape of a great flower with six perfect petals that radiated from the plain's center.
A smattering of applause rose.
The song changed. It was not quite pleasant now, and the princes winced at the dissonance. The crowd looked away, embarrassed, a few of them smirking. Signy gripped Ulla's fingers so hard their knuckles rubbed together, but Ulla had warned her their audience wouldn't understand, and instead of stopping, they sang louder. The king cringed. The queen turned narrow blue eyes on the choirmaster. His face was serene. He knew what Ulla intended.
She'd written the song in a new scale, one with a different number of intervals, and though the sound was discord to the others' ignorant ears, Ulla knew better. She could hear the shape of a different harmony. She and Signy held close to the notes - not letting them resolve to something more commonplace - and as they did, their voices vibrated through the water and over the plain. A riot of color exploded between the paths laid beneath them. Pale pink anemones and bright red sea fans, thick purple stalks of kelp, and florid spines of coral.
The crowd cried out in wonder as the gardens grew. Ulla felt her pulse race, her blood crackle as if lightning flowed through her veins, as if the song she'd built had always existed, and had simply been waiting for her to find it. Storm magic was easy. Even raising buildings or crafting gems was simple enough with the right notes. But to create living things? The song could not just call them into being. It had to teach them to understand their own needs, to take sustenance and survive.
That was how the royal gardens came to be. Ulla and Signy were its architects. Two nothing girls who until that moment might as well have been invisible.
Edited 2023-04-24 00:33 (UTC)
"Magic doesn't require beauty. Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters."
When the performance ended, it was young Prince Roffe who clapped the loudest and dispensed with the formal patterns of the dance that would have kept him swimming in circles for hours before he reached Ulla and Signy, lowly as they were. He cut straight through the crowd, and Ulla watched Signy’s face turn to the prince’s as if caught by an undertow.
Roffe’s eyes went to glittering Signy first. “Tell me how it’s done,” he begged her. “Those creatures and plants, will they live on? Or is it all just show?”
But now that the song was gone, it was as if Signy had forgotten her voice.
The prince tried again. “The plants—”
“They’ll live,” replied Ulla.
“The sound was so ugly.”
“Was it?” Ulla asked, a hard carapace glinting from beneath all her gems. “Or was it just something you hadn’t heard before?”
Signy was horrified. Then, as now, one did not contradict a prince, even if he required it.
But Prince Roffe looked only thoughtful. “It was not entirely unpleasant.”
“It wasn’t unpleasant at all,” said Ulla, unsure of why her tongue had turned so sharp. This boy was royalty, his notice might mean a route to becoming a court singer. She should flatter him, indulge him. Instead she continued, “Your ears just didn’t know what to make of it.”
He looked at Ulla then, really looked at her. His family had always possessed extraordinary eyes, blue deeper than any sea. Roffe turned those eyes on Ulla and took in her flat black gaze, the white wreath of lilies sitting at an awkward angle in her black hair. Was it the directness of his stare that made Ulla bold? She was used to everyone but Signy looking away from her, even her mother sometimes.
“Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"That was how the royal gardens came to be. Ulla and Signy were its architects."
Neither of their families was rich, but the girls had arrayed themselves as best they could for the occasion. In their hair they wore wreaths of salt lilies and small pearl combs they’d borrowed from their mothers. They had adorned their bodies with slivers of abalone shell, so that their torsos glittered and their tails flashed like treasure. Ulla looked well enough, still gray, still sullen, but Signy looked like a sun rising, her red hair splayed in a blazing corona. Ulla did not yet know how to name that color. She had never seen flame.
Ulla gazed at the crowd above her, around her. She could feel their curiosity like a questing tentacle, hear her name like a warbling, hateful melody.
Is that the girl? She’s positively gray.
Looks nothing like her mother or her father.
Well, she belongs to someone, unlucky soul.
Signy trembled too. She had chosen Ulla that day in the nautilus hall, drunk on the power they’d created together, and they had built a secret world for themselves where it did not matter that Signy was poor, or that she was pretty but not pretty enough to rise above her station. Here, before the sildroher and the royal family, the shelter of that world seemed very far away.
But Ulla and Signy were not the same frightened girls who had once cast each other bitter glances in class. Hands clasped tight, they lifted their chins.
The song began sweetly. Ulla's tail twitched, keeping the tempo, and she saw the king and queen nodding their heads in time high above. She knew they were already thinking of the feast to come. They were just polite enough not to show their boredom - unlike their sons.
Though Ulla had composed the spell, it had been Signy's idea, a daydream she had described to Ulla with giddy, fluttering hands, one they had embellished in lazy hours, warming themselves in the shallows.
Ulla let the song rise, and a series of slender, pearly arches began to form on the craggy plain. The floating crowd murmured its approval, thinking this was all the girls had to offer, two promising students who had, for some reason, been allowed to perform with the masters. The melody moved in simple escalating and then descending scales, creating symmetry for the sparkling paths that spread below them, and soon the new paths and colonnades formed the shape of a great flower with six perfect petals that radiated from the plain's center.
A smattering of applause rose.
The song changed. It was not quite pleasant now, and the princes winced at the dissonance. The crowd looked away, embarrassed, a few of them smirking. Signy gripped Ulla's fingers so hard their knuckles rubbed together, but Ulla had warned her their audience wouldn't understand, and instead of stopping, they sang louder. The king cringed. The queen turned narrow blue eyes on the choirmaster. His face was serene. He knew what Ulla intended.
She'd written the song in a new scale, one with a different number of intervals, and though the sound was discord to the others' ignorant ears, Ulla knew better. She could hear the shape of a different harmony. She and Signy held close to the notes - not letting them resolve to something more commonplace - and as they did, their voices vibrated through the water and over the plain. A riot of color exploded between the paths laid beneath them. Pale pink anemones and bright red sea fans, thick purple stalks of kelp, and florid spines of coral.
The crowd cried out in wonder as the gardens grew. Ulla felt her pulse race, her blood crackle as if lightning flowed through her veins, as if the song she'd built had always existed, and had simply been waiting for her to find it. Storm magic was easy. Even raising buildings or crafting gems was simple enough with the right notes. But to create living things? The song could not just call them into being. It had to teach them to understand their own needs, to take sustenance and survive.
That was how the royal gardens came to be. Ulla and Signy were its architects. Two nothing girls who until that moment might as well have been invisible.
"Magic doesn't require beauty. Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters."
Roffe’s eyes went to glittering Signy first. “Tell me how it’s done,” he begged her. “Those creatures and plants, will they live on? Or is it all just show?”
But now that the song was gone, it was as if Signy had forgotten her voice.
The prince tried again. “The plants—”
“They’ll live,” replied Ulla.
“The sound was so ugly.”
“Was it?” Ulla asked, a hard carapace glinting from beneath all her gems. “Or was it just something you hadn’t heard before?”
Signy was horrified. Then, as now, one did not contradict a prince, even if he required it.
But Prince Roffe looked only thoughtful. “It was not entirely unpleasant.”
“It wasn’t unpleasant at all,” said Ulla, unsure of why her tongue had turned so sharp. This boy was royalty, his notice might mean a route to becoming a court singer. She should flatter him, indulge him. Instead she continued, “Your ears just didn’t know what to make of it.”
He looked at Ulla then, really looked at her. His family had always possessed extraordinary eyes, blue deeper than any sea. Roffe turned those eyes on Ulla and took in her flat black gaze, the white wreath of lilies sitting at an awkward angle in her black hair. Was it the directness of his stare that made Ulla bold? She was used to everyone but Signy looking away from her, even her mother sometimes.
“Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.”