Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah made some progress on reforming his Body Imbuements over the course of the night. Natural Disaster was, by nature, a varied Rune. It had a lot of aspects to it, and calling on just a single one of them with a single Rune wasn’t ideal.

There was always the option of reforming some Rank 2 Runes for the Imbuements, but he much preferred to find a way to make Natural Disaster work. A stronger Rune meant stronger Imbuements, and Rank 3 was a significant improvement over Rank 2.

However, through some experimenting that Noah never would have considered if he didn’t know that he could just rip the Imbuement free and kill himself if worst came to worst, he determined that, while it wasn’t possible to completely ignore all the excess parts of Natural Disaster that he wasn’t trying to use, it was possible twist the way in which it was used so that almost no energy went to the unnecessary parts.

Instead of just focusing purely on picking up vibrations, Noah used each kind of energy that had gone into Natural Disaster to try and search for vibrations in their own forms. He then throttled the flow of energy entering everything other than the part of Natural Disaster that was focused on the earth until it was only a hair’s width above zero.

That made it so that, functionally, Noah’s feet were Imbued to detect vibrations in the earth – and, to an incredibly small degree, the fire, snow, water, wind, and lightning. He wasn’t particularly slow about the process of Imbuing it, but he’d done it before and wasn’t concerned with doing any damage to his body.

Forming that Rune had taken the better part of the night, but Noah stretched it a step further. He Imbued a similar Rune on his eardrums, but changed the focus from earth to vibrations in the wind. Noah kept that particular Imbuement fairly low power, not wanting to blow his ears out the moment some idiot fell down a flight of stairs.

Only a minute or two after Noah had finished his final checkups of his Imbuements, the door clicked. His eyes opened and he blinked the sleep away from them. His joints ached from sitting still for so long, and based by the faintest traces of light entering through the window, it was incredibly early morning.

The door swung open and Moxie poked her head inside. She looked uncharacteristically nervous, her eyes flicking to Noah and away from him quickly.

“Moxie?” Noah shifted, rising to his feet. “Did something happen? You didn’t get attacked or something, did you?”

“No, nothing like that. Everything is fine.” Moxie quickly shook her head, but she still hadn’t fully stepped out from behind the door.

Noah paused, then raised a confused eyebrow. “So… why are you hiding behind the door?”

Moxie cleared her throat. She pushed the door open with her shoulder and stepped inside cradling a polished wooden box in her arms carefully, as if it might break at any moment. Using her heel, Moxie pushed the door shut behind her.

They stared at each other for a second.

“Are you going to make me ask what’s in the incredibly suspicious box?” Noah asked. “It looks expensive.”

“Not particularly. For what it is, the price was pretty good.”

“Then why are you holding it like that? You’re making me curious now,” Noah said. “What is it?”

Moxie held the box out. Noah took it from her carefully. The way she was handling it made him feel like it was either worth a lot more than it looked or it was a slight nudge from exploding and killing both of them.

“Do you want me to–”

“Just open it.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. Noah set the box down on his bed to make sure he didn’t mistakenly drop it, then ran his hands along the smooth wood. It was so well crafted that it looked like a single solid piece, and it took him a moment to realize that the top could actually slide off.

It let out a soft click and came away in one smooth motion. It was a good thing that Noah had set the box on the bed. Resting atop the blue velvet pillows within the box was the most beautiful violin that Noah had ever laid eyes on.

Whorls of gold danced across its matte black wood, which was so dark that it was practically obsidian. The gilding was beautiful, but delicate enough to avoid being extravagant. Noah stared down at it, his eyes failing to properly communicate the magnitude of what he saw to his brain.

His mouth worked, but no words came to his lips. He reached out for the violin, then paused and glanced back at Moxie.

“Is–”

“It’s for you, idiot,” Moxie said, rolling her eyes and completely failing to hide the huge grin on her face. “Go on.”

Noah scooped the violin up gently, nestling it against his chest. It was far lighter than he’d expected it to be, but it felt right. Even though it had been thousands of years since he’d last held a musical instrument, the violin slipped into place as if it knew where it wanted to be.

Moxie stepped up beside Noah, pressing her hand against a latch in the box. It popped open, revealing a bow with beautiful golden threads running down its length.

“Careful with this,” Moxie warned. “It’s sharper than a knife. Don’t touch the threads with anything but the strings on the violin.”

Noah nodded, still not able to properly muster words. He let his hand run along the violin, marveling at the smooth wood as it ran beneath his fingers. The violin had seven strings rather than the traditional four, and it was a little bit smaller than the instrument he was used to, but aside from that, it was remarkably similar.

The urge to test it out was strong, but Noah resisted it. He gently set the violin back on the soft pillows, laying it to rest like a child.

“Is something wrong?” Moxie asked, a flash of worry crossing over her features. “Is it not what you–”

Noah threw his arms around Moxie, pulling her into a tight hug. Moxie drew in a sharp breath, then melted into it and wrapped her own arms around him.

“Thank you.” Noah finally mustered his voice as his fingers dug slightly into the clothes on Moxie’s back.

“You’re welcome.” Moxie’s voice was muffled from speaking into Noah’s shoulder, but she didn’t make any moves to pull away. “There’s more I should tell you about it before you play.”

“Like how you somehow managed to have something this beautiful made in just one night?”

Moxie let out a muted laugh. “Yeah. I take it you like it?”

“I love it, and I haven’t even played it yet.” A thought struck Noah and he stiffened. “God, I haven’t played music in so long. What if I’m terrible at it?”

“Then you’ll get better.”

Noah released Moxie. Her soft hair brushed against his skin as he took a small step back so he could look at her face again, and her cheeks had turned a faint shade of red.

“This is the greatest gift anyone’s ever gotten me,” Noah said, looking back down at the violin. “It must have been unbelievably expensive.”

“Don’t worry about the cost, considering half of it technically came out of your pockets,” Moxie said, clearing her throat sheepishly.

“For something like this, I wouldn’t care how much you charged me. I want to play it. Can I play it?”

Moxie burst into laughter. “I swear you’re just a kid sometimes, Noah. Before you play it, you need to put your hand on its back and put some energy into it. This isn’t just a violin. It was made by a master craftsman – the same one that made Evergreen’s staff.”

“How in the world did you afford that?”

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t that expensive, actually. I think he was doing me a favor.”

“Wow,” Noah murmured. “Well, he did an incredible job. I’ve never heard of someone being able to make a violin in one night. In my world, the process took months. The greatest violin makers only made a thousand or so in their entire lifetimes.”

“He probably won’t be making another like that one. W – He put in a lot of energy into it. Much more than normal. I don’t think it was intentional.”

“Well, it’s beautiful. If it sings a quarter as nice as it looks, then this will be the greatest violin in history.”

Moxie rolled her eyes. “Just put your hand on the back and figure out what he’s done. Once you’ve bonded with it, you can play.”

Lifting the violin, Noah turned it over gently in his hands. There was a small circle on its back, covered by carvings of ring of tiny thorns. Noah rested his palm against the back of the violin.

Moxie hadn’t said exactly how he was supposed to bond with it, but as soon as his hand was upon the wood, a cold tingle ran down his arm and into his spine. A foreign presence pressed against his mind.

The presence wasn’t exactly alive – but it wasn’t inert, either. Flickers of emotion mixed with images flashed through Noah’s mind. The warmth of flame and the bitter stench of glue. Heavy metal gauntlets, carving the violin’s body from a block of wood. Smaller hands, far more delicate, aiding him and pressing it together.

And, deeply imbued into every single aspect of the violin, was something else. It was more than just a desire to be played. The violin warmed in Noah’s hands, pulsing with the faintest of heartbeats. A warm, comforting feeling enveloped Noah.

For an instant, he could feel every single part of the violin as if it was part of his own body. He could tell where the parts had come from and what they had once been. In that moment, Noah knew Arnold. He felt the man’s passion for his craft, and his desire to make every piece he made the greatest it could be.

But Arnold was, to Noah’s bafflement, just a tiny part of the violin. The violin acknowledged him as the lead craftsman, but he was not its creator. That title belonged to Moxie.

The violin was positively thrumming with the energy and feeling she had poured into it while it had been made. For whatever reason, Moxie hadn’t told him that she’d been part of the violin’s creation, but it wasn’t keeping that particular secret even remotely hidden.

As the moment passed and the violin’s presence started to retreat from Noah’s mind, he was left with one lingering feeling – and it wasn’t his own. It was the deep care that had gone into the violin, born not just for it, but for him. It was beyond the love of any acquaintance or friend.

The last traces of the visions faded away, though Noah still felt a faint link to the violin humming in the back of his mind. Even though the violin’s presence had receded, there was still a sense of peace in its passing. His eyes raised, meeting Moxie’s gaze.

“You made this,” Noah said. “Arnold just helped.”

“He did most of the work. I just–”

“No.” Noah shook his head. “The violin remembered being made, and it showed me. Arnold just guided everything and put the final parts together. The violin’s heart is from you. You made this. I felt it.”

And I felt your feelings as well.

Moxie was silent for a few moments. “I didn’t realize it could do anything like that. What else does it have in there?”

Is this even okay? I’m thousands of years older than Moxie is.

For an instant, Azel stirred within Noah’s mind.

Most of that time didn’t pass in any true way. Your mind would have withered away if it had. It’s been compressed and compartmentalized. Logically, you know that time has passed, but much of what you remember is condensed suffering. For all intents and purposes, you’re not much older than Moxie.

For once, Azel didn’t seem smug or confident. Even the demon seemed respectful in the face of what the violin had shown Noah – or, more likely, Azel was currently feasting on all the emotion that was swirling through Noah’s heart.

The years of loneliness in the afterlife, accompanied by nothing but the fading sounds of his own thoughts. His failure to ever make any meaningful relationships on Earth, and the isolation he would have had on Arbitage had he not run into Moxie and the others.

Noah paused, using the remainder of the feeling the violin had filled him with to strip away all his mental justifications and arguments, peering into his true desires for just an instant.

“Did it show you something?” Moxie asked, the worry taking form in her voice even in spite of her best efforts to hide it.

“Yes,” Noah replied, raising his eyes back to meet Moxie’s. “This.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

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