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Song of the Aois-Dana by Linaeve
Merit for November 2007
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Strain I: The Voice's Prelude, "His Song"
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I dreamed one night, a masked mirage, into my dreams he came,
his voice swelled like a symphony and beckoned me by name.
He played for me my violin, he touched the strings with gold,
entrancing me with horrors; tales the Fates have never told.
I pressed my fingers to his mask, and took it from his face,
he stole his song away from me and disappeared in haste.
The mirror that beheld the ghost now shattered in its place,
and now I keep his mask until his song again I taste.
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Strain II: The Vow
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Still the mirror beckoned me, its shards a grim array,
begetting echoes of his song and remnants of his face.
I knelt beside the shattered wreck and tried to mend it true,
my fingers drew his song's return; his face was there, anew.
That eldritch hair, abysmal eyes, that face I gazed upon;
the honeyed lips, infinite voice, they tortured me till dawn.
"My Lord, Eternal Legion," I cried out emptily.
My prayers all went unanswered 'neath the ghostly melody.
Then morning broke in shafts of light that flickered on the glass;
the mirror's demon spectre faded, gone from me at last.
But lingering were motes of song, near-silent euphony.
Like Nil's sweet carillon, he made his final, haunting plea.
"You'll fetch for me my music box, Countess, and fetch it now;
tonight I come again to you. My song is yours, I vow."
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Strain III: My Song
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I knew the music box at once; he'd shown me in a dream
that deep within the Presidio, his sacred treasure gleamed.
I made the lofty journey, though it took me near to dusk;
the silvery moon consorting with night's canopy, her truss.
At once I took it home, and wiped its gilding free of dust.
The stars commenced their vigil; the eve was looming late.
The tarnished box I cradled, closed; no longer could I wait.
I opened in it silence as my breath caught in my throat,
and finally he came to me with one abating note.
His face illumined in the glass within the box's frame,
the porcelain figure poised within began to turn again,
and as the ghost conducted me I sang his sweet refrain:
"You gave to me your song, your Voice, and never shall I wane!"
And now his haunting melody imbues my every strain.