The Aethelgard transport ship descended through the upper atmosphere of Lupri. Known galaxy wide as the Grand Tower, the planet was the academic heart of the Accord, a world of continent spanning universities and research archives. Aethelgard, Dorian's own academy, was just one of the prestigious moons that orbited this colossal center of learning.
He looked around at the other sixteen year olds packed into the transport cabin with him. Their faces were pale, their knuckles white as they gripped armrests. They were all sitting in a tense, nervous silence. The ship landed with a gentle thud, and its ramp lowered. As Dorian stepped out into the crisp, perfectly filtered air of Lupri, he was greeted by a loud, boisterous voice he did not want to hear right now.
"DORII! Where have you been? Are you really not taking any more Compadres classes just to avoid ?"
Dorian turned, a polite smile fixed on his face. "Cassian Rhee. How could I? I am just a lowly level resident of Nexus Pri. Unlike you, I can not afford to play around in theoretical classes."
Cassian Rhee, heir to the Rhee Robotics manufacturing empire, strode towards him. Dorian knew him from the introductory Compadres class back in his second sester. From the outside, Cassian looked like a typical bully, but Dorian had learned he was not genuinely hostile. He just had the unshakeable, out of touch confidence of the ultra rich. Even now, on the most important day of their lives, he was completely relaxed. His future was bright whether he beca a Solar or not.
"It is good that you know your place," Cassian said with a grin. "But I will tell you this one more ti. Co and focus on the Compadres major like . You can help with my studies. You know you are good with those clanking Compadres stuff. You can do that work in my na. You get the experience, I get the resu. By the ti we are adults, I will have a good resu thanks to you, and I will make you my right hand man when I inherit my dad's company."
Dorian simply began to walk towards the main arena. "No thanks, Rhee. And stop saying you have no talent in robotics. You do. You just need to kick those yes n out of your life."
He walked on, leaving Cassian standing there.
"My offer will stand until you blatantly reject !" Cassian shouted after him.
Just then, two heavyset kids of the sa age hurried to Cassian's side. "What are you shouting about, boss?" one asked.
"Did Dori reject your offer again, boss?" the other piped up. "How dare he reject the boss's offer!"
Cassian let out a long, weary sigh and said, "Let's go."
Dorian made his way to the designated area for the aspirants. The vast chamber was a cathedral of steel and glass, filled with hundreds of sixteen year olds from Aethelgard and the other academy moons. They were all rivals, yet they were united in a shared, palpable anxiety.
After a long wait, a set of massive doors hissed open, leading out into the main arena. It was just as he rembered from Juno's ceremony. He scanned the colossal spectator stands and, after a mont, he found them. His family. John was there, with Marcus perched high on his shoulders. Lyra was waving a small, handmade flag with frantic energy, and Leo floated near them, a calm, spherical presence in the excited crowd. Dorian smiled and gave a small wave, not sure if they could even see him from this distance.
A booming voice cut through the air. "Incompatible!" The ceremony had begun.
Ti seed to warp, stretching into an agonizing crawl. He watched aspirant after aspirant take the stage, their futures decided in a matter of monts. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, his na was called.
"Dorian Elias Kepler."
His heart hamred against his ribs. He walked up to one of the circular podiums rising from the arena floor. The Channeller, a severe looking woman in ceremonial robes, approached him with a syringe. She injected a small amount of shimring fluid into his neck. Dorian gritted his teeth, holding back a wince as a cold fire spread through his veins.
"Lay down," the Channeller commanded.
He lay back on the cold, tallic bed. The Channeller took a gleaming Heliocore and placed it gently on his forehead. And then, he waited. The initial pain from the injection faded. He lay there, staring up at the distant ceiling, focusing all his will, all his hope, into that single point of contact on his brow. Nothing. He felt nothing.
The Channeller observed the inert Heliocore, her expression unchanging. She then turned to the crowd and announced, her voice amplified to fill every corner of the arena with cold finality.
"Incompatible!!"
The word did not just enter his ears; it rattled his entire existence. The thing he had been striving for his entire life. He had been reborn, transmigrated, reincarnated, whatever you wanted to call it, into this world, and he had always believed, deep down, that he had sothing special. What was happening?
The Channeller's voice was a muffled buzz in his ear. "Get out, kid. There are more aspirants that need to be checked."
He did not rember standing. He did not rember walking. He found himself moving towards the "incompatible" side of the arena, a vast, growing crowd of rejected kids. The fact that almost ninety percent of the aspirants were in his sa position did not make the personal agony hurt any less. It felt as if the life and soul had been sucked from his body.
He moved livelessly through the rest of the big day. When the ceremony finally ended, his family found him. They tried to say things, words of comfort, he assud, but he just nodded. All the noise, the light, all of it was just a muffled, blurry haze.
He was not sure how he got ho. The next thing he knew, he was in his bed, the darkness of his room a perfect match for the void inside him. He was only shaken from his stupor when sothing nudged his arm. He turned his head on the pillow. Leo was hovering there, its optical sensor a soft, concerned blue.
"D-Dorian," the Compadre said, its voice programd with an inflection of worry. "Please eat."
…
Three days had passed since the Awakening. Three days of a silence that was heavier than any argunt.
Lyra and Marcus stood outside the closed door to Dorian's bedroom. Lyra held a small tray with a single, plain breakfast block on it. She knocked softly.
"Brother," she said, her voice gentle. "We brought you breakfast."
There was no response from inside. Lyra had exhausted all the cheerful things she could think to say over the last three days. Her energy was gone, replaced by a quiet, aching worry.
"We love you, brother," she whispered to the door, then turned to leave.
Marcus, however, stepped forward. He pushed the door open just a crack and walked in. He went over to the bed where Dorian lay, a still form staring lifelessly at the wall. Marcus placed his worn, plush doll on the pillow next to Dorian's head.
"I was thinking for three days," Marcus said seriously. "But I decided to lend him to you for now. I hope brother can sleep well."
Dorian did not move. After the children closed the door, a long ti passed. Eventually, he sat up, his movents stiff and chanical, and ate the breakfast block.
That night, there was another knock. "Dorian," his father's voice ca through the door. "Can I co in?"
Dorian just grunted.
John entered, his large fra seeming to shrink in the oppressive quiet of the room. He looked at his eldest son, a hollowed out version of the boy he was just a few days ago. His gaze swept around the room, taking in the pictures on the wall. A photo of Dorian as a baby, with John, a much younger Eline, and a brand new, gleaming white Leo. Another with a small Lyra added to the family. Then one with a tiny Marcus, but this ti, Eline was gone.
John's eyes landed on a faded poster of the reigning Arena Compadres champions. He smiled weakly. "Still following the comp championship, Dorian?"
Silence.
John tried again, his voice strained with the effort of trying to find the right words. "The other miners, they always envy , you know. I... well, I did not want to tell you because you would think I am la, but I always took a photo of your school reports that Leo copied. I would show them at the mines. They all wanted the secret to what I fed you to make you so smart."
Still, Dorian said nothing.
John's shoulders slumped. He took a breath. "Look, Dorian. The academy just called. It is about your scholarship... I do not know the details, but they say-"
Suddenly, Dorian shot up in bed, his eyes blazing with a life that had been absent for days. "Look, just take the rest and leave out of it!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "They already know I can not beco a Solar! They already cut off the program! They should have another month of stipend, just take it and get out!"
John stopped, stunned by the outburst. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He thought of what he should say, a dozen useless platitudes, but he stopped himself. He turned and walked to the door. Before he left, he paused, his back to his son.
"I have to go back to the mines," he said, his voice heavy with a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. "Have a good sleep, Dorian."
…
Weeks crawled by. Juno tried to reach out. She would visit, her presence a bright, energetic contrast to the gloom that had settled over the Kepler household. Dorian would just nod silently, his body lifeless, his eyes empty.
"I have talked to the faculty," she said one afternoon, trying to inject so cheer into the oppressive quiet. "They say they have other scholarship programs. You would need to re-apply, of course, with a new major." She leaned forward, her violet eyes hopeful. "Oh! I told them you had a talent for robotics and code, right? They said they have a scholarship for that! Or, how about you co to my previous major, ship engineering? They have-"
"What major are you now?" Dorian cut her off, his voice a dry rasp.
Juno was taken aback. "It is a... a Solar," she stamred. "Nullbreakers path."
Dorian stood up, his movents stiff. "Thanks for visiting, Juno." He turned, walked to his bedroom, and shut the door without another word.
Juno stared at the closed door, her cheerful facade crumbling. She looked at Leo, who had been hovering silently nearby.
"This is the longest Dorian has even spoken for this week," the Compadre stated softly.
Juno gulped, the finality of Dorian's rejection stinging her. She spoke to the closed door, her own voice now quiet and thick with emotion. "You know you have , right? Please, call when you are ready to talk."
…
Months passed. Almost three of them. Dorian fell into a routine. Wake, eat, stare, sleep. But ever so slightly, so gradually that no one could ever notice, a flicker of his old self began to return.
One day, he found himself alone in the apartnt. Lyra and Marcus were at school, with Leo accompanying them. He stood up from his bed and looked around his room. His gaze fell on the collection of photos on his wall. He saw himself, his mother Eline, her head tilted as she played a violin while he, a much smaller version of himself, mimicked her with a toy instrunt. He saw another photo, of himself playing a real violin now, with little Lyra clapping on Eline's lap while John smiled by her side.
He looked around his room, a sudden, desperate urge seizing him. He began searching, his movents growing frantic. The violin was not here. He went to the small attic space above their ceiling, pulling down the rickety ladder. He rummaged through dusty boxes and forgotten belongings until his fingers brushed against the cool, smooth wood of an instrunt case.
He brought it back to his room and laid it on his bed. With trembling hands, he unlatched the old, worn case. He picked up the violin, the familiar weight of it a ghost in his hands. He lifted the bow, took a shaky breath, and began to play.
{A/N: Café 1930 (Astor Piazzolla) - Alexandra Whittingham and Esther Abrami. The violin part}
He plucked a string. The sound was a dull, sour thud, flat and deadened by years of neglect. But his hands rembered. Without conscious thought, his left hand found the tuning pegs while his right thumb continued to test the strings. A dull pluck, the groan of a peg turning, another pluck, closer this ti. He worked his way across all four strings, his ear guiding him with an unerring precision he did not know he possessed, tightening and tuning the instrunt back to life.
Finally, he settled the violin under his chin. He drew the bow across the strings for a single, hesitant note. Then another followed, and another, until the mournful, beautiful lody of "Café 1930" began to fill the small room.
With his eyes closed, the music beca a torrent of feeling. Each scrape of the bow was a rasp of the Channeller's voice, a ghost echoing in his mind. Incompatible! The word was a dissonant chord, a note of failure that vibrated through his very bones. The pressure from his family, their hopeful faces at the ceremony, beca a crushing weight on the lody, forcing it down into a minor key of regret.
The lody twisted, a lant for a ghost. He saw his mother, Eline, her face clear in his mory, her smile a painful, beautiful thing. The music was the sound of her turning and walking away, leaving him a child with responsibilities no child should bear. The notes were the taste of bland nutrient paste, the perpetual gloom of the lower levels, the bitter, grinding reality of his life. And underneath it all were the echoes of his other life, flashes of a world he could feel but not fully grasp, a haunting that promised a freedom he could never have.
But then, the song shifted. Its lancholic sorrow began to give way to a quiet, resilient beauty.
A single, pure, high note soared, and in his mind, he was on the transport again, rising out of the shadowed canyons of Nexus Pri. He felt the impossible warmth of real sunlight on his outstretched hand, a golden mont of pure, simple joy. The tempo beca playful, a pitter-patter of notes like raindrops on the tal streets, and he saw Lyra splashing in the puddles, heard Marcus's unrestrained giggles, felt the security of holding them close under a shared umbrella. The lody deepened, becoming rich and warm, and he was at the dinner table, watching his siblings devour a real al, a small island of warmth and family in a cold, uncaring city.
The music swelled, a powerful crescendo that filled every corner of his being. And in that mont, he finally understood. His past life, his Mnemonic Echo, it was not a curse. It had not dood him with bitterness for what he lacked. It had blessed him with the perspective to see the beauty in what he had. The others who lived in the dark took it for granted. But he, who rembered the sun, could appreciate the faintest flicker of a candle.
The final note hung in the air, soft and fragile, before fading into silence.
Dorian opened his eyes. He felt the wet tracks of tears on his cheeks and realized, with a sense of distant surprise, that he had been crying.
A soft thud from the doorway made him jump.
His father was standing there, his mining duffel bag dropped at his feet. John's face was unreadable, etched with a mixture of emotions Dorian could not begin to decipher.
Dorian's voice was a choked stamr. "When... when did you get back?"
John's gaze was steady, holding his son's. "After you picked up the violin."
**A/N**
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**A/N**
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