Part One: The Commission
There is a young man, nearly 25, immersed in his own little world. On the floor of his room, he is but one island in the midst of an archipelago of piles: heaps of laundry, empty plates and cups, the occasional food wrapper, and a wealth of instruments and sheet music that belong to genres and eras and worlds innumerable.
DG-R, the young man's petite droid companion, hops down from his charging perch and easily navigates his way through the familiar wreckage. He taps the young man’s leg once, twice, three times before Druu finally stills his fingers upon his composition tablet in order to pause the symphony raging in his headphones.
"Hey, buddy, what - "
But the little droid interrupts with bleeps and bloops in a robotic language Druu knows well, and he follows the droid's emphatic gesticulating to find one of the campus couriers, a Trax, standing in the open door.
"Oh," he says somewhat sheepishly, "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."
"I have something for you," the Trax replies, all business as his position of the highest rank requires, "It's...well, it's a message."
While Druu unearths himself and traverses the chaotic sea of his life, he should notice that the courier is uneasy, uncertain, and curious; but Druu is not the kind of guy who notices these things. Instead, he ponders why the message wasn't sent directly to his tablet or why he hadn't received a summons to the community holo-comm booths.
In his tenure at the conservatory, a courier, much less a high-level Trax, has never darkened his door before. Couriers do not deliver messages, only packages, and Druu has neither the expectation of nor the experience of receiving one. His brothers are spread throughout the galaxy, a physical distance indicative of the emotional one between he and the rest.
And his parents...well...he knows they have their hands full.
So a package, much less a message delivered via courier, is quite an unexpected and strange thing to Druu.
He finally arrives at the doorway and faces the courier, eyebrows peaking expectantly.
The courier makes the handoff for the delivery (but, instead of turning on his heel and marching onwards to his next recipient, he waits. A message delivered via courier is an unexpected and strange thing to him, too.)
Druu gapes at what the Trax has given him.
Paper.
A paper envelope. A red seal. His name lettered in old-world calligraphy.
"Where did you get this?!?" he asks, voice pitching with alarm.
"It was delivered to the Grand Maestro’s Office this morning. That is all I know."
Druu shoves past the courier and through the doorway, calling back both a rushed apology to him and an unnecessary summons to his companion, whose thrusters are already engaged for flight.
"Digger! C'mon!"
Across campus they flee to the Administrative Towers, and once inside they fly up and around winding flights of stairs until they finally arrive at the wide landing of the top floor. Druu trips and rolls off of the last stairstep, sprawling onto his back, envelope clutched atop his heaving chest and eyes closed as the sunlight streaming in through the windows both blinds him and bathes him with bright, multicolored shapes.
"May I help you?"
Druu's eyelids snap open as flames of embarrassment tinge his face. Granting himself just another quick moment of recovery, he then rolls over and pats DG-R with gratitude before rising to meet the Grand Maestro's Assistant.
The crimson of his face blushes deeper when he finds a female dwarfed (though she herself is clearly neither dwarf nor human) by an ancient, ornate, wooden desk. She and it are haloed by the glow of afternoon light through the stained glass windows behind her. With hands folded, she waits patiently for Druu to state his business.
The humming and whirring of modern-day tech fills the expectant silence.
Druu blinks.
Suddenly prickling with nerves and anxiety, he stammers, "Oh...ummm...yes. I'm sorry about that. I...ummm...don't make a habit of running. Very much."
"I figured," she says, but something about her eyes is warm and twinkling, and her face is open and pleasant. Druu can't help but feel more at ease. He begins to smile, and she smiles back. "What's the rush?"
"Oh, ummm..." he says, for he can't quite recall at the moment what has brought him to this place and this person, but DG-R's whistle reminds him of the paper he holds. "Oh!" He fumbles it a bit and turns it over in his hands before presenting it to the Assistant. "This. This letter was delivered to me. By courier. Like a package. Do you know who brought it? Are they still here?"
The Assistant stands, her wings reflexively shaking out as she moves around to the side of the desk where Druu is, and he doesn’t miss how the metronomic clicking of her heels invokes a tune he can only hear a few notes of before she stops and gently takes the letter from his hands.
"Indeed I do. It was delivered by Royal Messenger this morning," she replies, and Druu fidgets with impatience.
"Did you catch a name?" he asks.
The Assistant looks from the letter to his face and says, "I did. May I see your ID first please?"
Druu, growing even more impatient, fishes out his ID card, and when the Assistant is satisfied with her scans, she says, "It was Gábbor."
"Is he still here? Somewhere?" Druu asks, but she frowns sadly.
"Unfortunately, no. I'm sorry."
His hopes sinking from peak to valley, Druu sighs, his countenance so forlorn that the Assistant offers a small comfort with her touch on his arm. Lost in his disappointment, he doesn’t notice.
With another heavy sigh, he confesses, "I was just hoping to hear news from him about home, that's all." He shrugs and glances up at her. "I'm sorry."
She squeezes his arm a little and offers him a half-smile with his letter, which he takes from her while still hanging his head in defeat; but she, on the other hand, smiles wider.
"Well, why don't you read the letter then?"
His head pops up. "What?!"
"Your letter," she repeats, gently tapping the envelope in his hand. "The seal is not broken. You haven't read it yet."
"Oh! Oh yeah," he says, chuckling a little. "Right. Of course. There is that. Ummm...do you mind if I..."
"Not at all," she replies, gesturing to the plush chairs of the Grand Maestro's waiting area. "I'll be here if you need anything."
"Thank you," Druu says, and he nods a quick bow. "C'mon, Digger."
Druu and his droid hustle over to the chairs while the Assistant returns to hers. He loses the sounds of her fingernails clacking on the keys and screens and buttons when he breaks the seal and unfolds the paper. Beneath a small, round disc is the Queen's handwriting.
My dear, eldest son,
It is with heavy heart that I write to you this truth: the prophecy has come to pass. I had hoped that it wouldn't, I worked diligently to prevent it, but, unfortunately, choices were made that lead to its inevitability.
Therefore, you already know what I must ask. Gather your brothers, starting with Tommas in Verderia. Once you are all together, and only if all of you are together, travel to the Kingdom of the Hidden World.
You are the only one who has knowledge of this request, and you are free to refuse. Please send word of your decision as soon as you can.
With love and faith,
Your Mother
p.s.
If you find the King or when you find the King, remember only this:
Do whatever He tells you.
For a long time, Druu stares out the windows, following the path of the setting sun. The metallic wafer dances across his knuckles while he contemplates what his Mother is asking of him, the sacrifices he must make, and how uncomfortable and uncertain his life will become.
Doubt tells him that he is ill-equipped, that he is the wrong man for the job, and that success is unlikely. He longs to run back to his piles and and his headphones and his safe little world.
But he doesn’t. For Druu, there is really no other choice but to be true to the song in his heart.
Besides, how can he deny a request from his Mother?
“Miss?” he says, and he finds that the Assistant has been waiting on him.
“Yes?”
“May I see the Grand Maestro now?”
“Of course,” she says as she escorts him to the imposing double doors. Druu crosses the threshold of the Grand Maestro's office, where he gives up the life he has always dreamed of in favor of mortal danger, adventure, and hope.
But first - he will have to deal with his brothers, and that is what scares him more than anything else.
@inklings-challenge
