Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 12 of 54

The bottle sat on the workbench, glowing faint. She stood at the stone gate with ice pillars and pressed her ear to the wood. Nothing came through. The fur curtain inside swallowed every echo. She had her song, but no way to know if it would carry past a front row. She sang the four notes at the curtain. The hides drank them. She sang them at the door. The stone ate the sound. Her own song came back to her thin and small, like a voice in a closed hand. A flat broadcast would lose her the crowd she had left. She took down a leather journal etched with frost patterns and opened it on the bench. She wrote the four notes on the first page, then drew lines beside them — louder, softer, held. She uncorked the bottle, sang the line back into her throat, and pressed the cork down again. The song stayed hers. The shape of it was now on paper she could carry. She pushed the gate open. Cold air rushed in and lifted the curtain. She stepped out with the bottle in her sleeve and the journal under her arm. The workshop could not test her song, so she would test it where every song was tested — outside, in the open, before she was ready.