A New Sound
It was clear that when the Pandaren performer took the stage one weekend, Serenas had a new fascination. And that fixation was shaped as a long lacquered instrument of wood, lain out horizontally. Similar to a harp - at least if it were stretched out like a desk or on the lap - its long strings were meant to be plucked with utmost delicate precision. The traditional song was conveyed through deep, almost mournful chords of melody. And twanging vibratos of rising hope.
Serenas was not sure that she heard its like before, not in the way it had been played. Not in her waking moments, anyway. Maybe it had been a resonance flowing into the background of her dreams. But it was grounded and simple as much as it felt intrinsically connected to the simplest elements. The grounding of the earth, the errant sway of wind, the gentle flow of water. It was as if each long string were pulled from Azeroth herself, and converged into somber melody.
The performer, one Lady Meiyu had been the mistcaller Seon's grandmother, and the old Matriarch was glad to speak on what was called the guqin. It was an instrument made for mostly meditative practice stretching back through times ancient, and yet more.
“The body of the guqin is not unlike our own. A vessel in which the spirit rests. And where the music flows, the strings?” The Pandaren paused to delicately pluck a flow of chords with mastered precision and poise, “Are the heavens. We must refine ourselves to produce the sound worthy of them. They have long taught the same lessons in our temples, and our Shado-Pan, when we must train our bodies to fight.”
“And the heavens, they sing their own song,” Serra remarked in a murmur, an afterthought.
Lady Meiyu tilted her head toward the young scribe curiously. “You hear the heavens sing?”
Under the old Matriarch's stare, Serenas felt suddenly scrutinized. A stare felt a dozen times before by the eldest Dawnsingers, determining her worth to the House she was born to.
It only felt right then to swallow her words and give the grace of a deflecting smile, as she had a dozen times in return. “Only in my dreams. Please, my lady, continue. I would like to hear more.”
