Read The Tranquil Notes of an Enchanting Serenade :: Chapter 15: Notes dancing on Air

Yu and Lei walked the whole way, because it was not far. Or maybe it didn't seem far, because they were in good company and talking the whole way.

Oh, and it was actually fast, since Lei used her speed and carried her fox with one arm. Yu giggled most of the way.

Yes, both of them were exhausted, but Yu was very happy that Lei went through the trouble of carrying her to practice.

They used a navigation app, due to Yu's bad sense of orientation.

Lei was even worse though, and in all honesty, Yu was only bad right now, because she was strangely distracted, her mind remembering the soft touches and caresses of last night.

Not that she had an impeccable sense of orientation, but at least she got around in the places she knew.

When they arrived, they were late, of cours, but at least not the last one's to arrive. In fact they were the second to last and the other member's couldn't focus on starting the practice, because of how they looked.

They looked so gorgeous that everyone else felt underdressed. But the thing was, why this did not came off as arrogant was due to Yu regularly dressing over the top. She always paid close attention to how she looked, thus it also made sense that her girlfriend would fit this.

Or at least that it would make sense for the official first meeting of her friends and her girlfriend.

The moment everyone was there, Yu really wanted to start practising, but no, they all asked her about Lei, where they had met, where they had gotten the dresses... They needed to explain and narrate the last weeks, but they kept it brief, not only because of privacy, but mainly because Yu wanted to start… Lei did understand that her friends wanted to know about this, but she also noticed that Yu pretty much thought this to be old news.

Later, when they talked a bit about this Yu would reveal that she had thought, her friends had already guessed about everything and hadn’t felt the need to fill them in. Plus, at the moment they had not gotten enough practice, so Yu had been very impatient. Still she agreed to fill them in more elaborately in the future.

Eventually, Yu slipped off her heels and then took out her violin, gave everyone the sheets of music she had composed and then they could start. Finally.

Lei sat down on a chair and closed her eyes, as she enjoyed the music in addition to Yu's mesmerising voice.

She played old and new songs, however to Lei most were unfamiliar.

Her heart began to acclerate and she could at some point not decide, whether to keep her eyes closed or follow each movement of Yu's graceful dance.

It was like she was floating, dancing on the air surrounding her, creating a gust of wind around her, which played with the dress and her hair.

Lei didn't dare to blink most of the time, yet the moment she closed her eyes, her ears vibrated with Yu's etheral voice.

All of them were rather skilled and she could see why, Yu had this dream about being a famous band, they certainly didn’t lack the skill. They had introduced themselves to Lei, after gathering themselves up again, due to the weird situation the two had created.

In total the band without a name, or rather constantly changing names were all women, all from the myths and except for Muira-San and Tachibana-san, all of them sang. As far as Lei understood and witnessed it was that they either worked as a band and shifted from harmonising to supporting the current lead singer. Or sometimes during instrumental solos, they sang over that and what struck Lei was that depending on the song, not only the style shifted and sometimes even the genre, but through the current lead singer the whole vibe of the band shifted.

It was very clear that this was one of the reasons they had problems with finding a band name.

Muira-san was a cat shifter, a calico to be exact and her instrument was the heart of every music. The Tachibana-san that did not sing was the lead guitar, while her sister, who also sang was the 2nd guitar and responsible for the harmonisation and depth of each accord. Both were non-immortal witches. Yes, they were twins.

One might think the one among them with the green hair was the singer. No.

Miyabi-chan, no last name, was a mermaid and the notes she elicited from her keyboard either underlined or challenged the sounds crafted by Yu’s beautiful violin.

The one keeping this all in pace and the main point of orientation was the dogshifter Tsubame-san on her drums.

After the practice session Lei and Yu walked back to Yu's apartment.

Yu could not cook, as mentioned before, she did not have a kitchen, but it was enough for instant noodles.

Her lack of not having a kitchen was not the cause of that, her lack of talent and need to was. And dear reader, she would never admit to it, but she was quite decent, if a bit rusty, since she had stopped trying for the better part of 200 years.

She also had bought something from the convenience store as dessert. Thus, they sat down together and Lei was still humming one of Yu's songs.

It was a new one and it was called 'The lunar shadow off to the solar ray'.

It was a very fast song, and when Yu had performed it, she had tangled herself a bit in her dress, now, both were in casual clothing, though.

Yu had asked her to stay and given her some clothes, which were a bit too big for the fox, but fitted Lei like a glove.

The said casual wear was sleep wear, a two piece for Yu and a gown for Lei.

When they sat together in Yu's nest, they were very close and Yu's head rested on Lei's chest, as she hugged her.

Yu was about to fall asleep, but she didn't dare yet.

The humming of Lei was soothing, but also made her want to listen more.

"Would you sing for me?", she whispered and Yu's head rose to face Lei's golden gaze.

"I could. But I'd rather it, if you played an instrument accompanying me." - "Which one?"

"A zither? I was thinking of singing one of my ba's lullabies. Do you know 'The Dragon of the red mountain?' I think the titles vary across time and cultures, but 1967, there was a singer famous for an interpretation.", Lei's eyes glimmered with excitement and Yu nodded enthusiastically.

Yu got up and got her Hangukuan zither out, sat down opposite of Lei and started playing.

This started a row of, 'Oh do you know?' and grew into a back and forth of the question and the perfomance of each song.

It was way past midnight, before the performance of historical pieces and recent ones stopped and Lei curled in on herself on the pillow pile, which prompted Yu to play a melody of her own, until she was sure, her dragon had fallen asleep and then she put away the zither, before she finally snuggled up with Lei.

She had brought a blanket to wrap herself and Lei into and was soothed by the rhythmic heartbeat of the sleeping reptile. Her skin was so cold, but quickly warmed, the moment she snuggled up to her.

'Ah..', Yu thought.

This woman was simply incredible. She was smart, calm and funny, but not too calm, though definitely calmer than quirky Yu, and most importantly; her parents liked her.

This felt so surreal and so much like a dream, that the moment she fell asleep, she wasn't really surprised, when her ability gave her glimpses of a story, so ancient her soul had forgotten it.

She saw herself as a soothsayer in ancient clothing, telling people their fortune and making predictions about the weather and advised them, which crops would make more sense according to future weather patterns. But also sometimes it depended on how much each crop would thrive.

Yu saw herself doing this, from the inside and sometimes from the outside, it really seemed like a peaceful life, even though the conditions got harder, drought after drought, when the Saharan desert started to spread.

At the time she of course didn't know this, but now she had studied multiple things and in retrospect knew better than back than.

Wait ... back when? A past life back then? Was it her only? It felt like her first. That's what her intuition indicated.

And as was custom with some dreams: It started in the middle, skipped to the beginning, went to the end and then build a narrative of main points.

She was a soothsayer. She lived a long life and with someone. But what was the most confusing was that she should've been immortal, even then, still... she could sense that her entity was too powerful for that body, which was why it had flickered out at some point.

Yu woke up the next morning and was confused... What had she been? What was she, which had led a chaos entity to crumble and diminish itself? Why didn't it happen right now?

She would have to do some divination.

How could she be sure that, she would not die prematurely, again? A hunch, let's call it intuition.

Lei was still asleep, which was very distracting for Yu and untypical of Lei.

Her dream faded into the fog, until a later juncture.

Old Author's Note: (15th of March 2025)

Yes, it's a short chapter, but not every chapter will be this short. I just want to focus on a few things at a time and to not squeeze it all into one chapter.

New Author's Note (9th of November 2025) :

Hi, so I finally had the time to in depth introduce Yu's band, for a more detailed description, please refere to the attached enlistment.

Thanks for reading this !

Complete List of Band Member’s:

Muira Ai Tachibana Chiaki

1,72 1,72

copper hair | black eyes green hair | blue eyes

Bass 1st guitar

Tsubame Inoue Tachibana Shiori

1,60 1,75

rainbow hair | amber eyes dark brown hair and eyes

Drums | Background Vocal 2nd guitar and vocal