Callie's Heroes

PART XI: PAST MASTERS

"Woo!" Callie called out in harmony with her final chords of Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling. Behind her, the rest of the band added their own final flourishes, everyone ending the song on the same downbeat. At the same time, the illusionist synchronized cancelling the magic on several floating orbs that had been pulsing in time with the music. It didn't plunge everything into darkness, but certainly lowered the brightness quite a bit and visually ended the song.

While a few people had been dancing, the inclusion of the audience in the form of the 'Ogre chanting' largely made people come forward and congregate in front of the players, following along eagerly with Nekini's animated directions. A few were jumping in time, Ambria most excitedly, and the growing pack of Dwarves had come right up to the stage, doing their own aggressive bouncing as they drunkenly chanted along, too. Behind them, Callie had seen Lady Winafria and Lord Cessel clapping and bouncing as well, the Lady cupping her mouth and yelling out the words with the rest of the crowd as needed, a huge smile on her face, acting not-at-all like a stuffy member of Parliament or someone you'd think of as nobility.

Pixyl … was not jumping around. For almost the entire song, she simply stood transfixed. Wide-eyed and in awe, she watched Callie take command of the music while Nekini commanded the crowd. Periodically, she'd look down at her hands, moving them slightly in rhythm as if air drumming, or at least the very first nervous attempts at it. She'd frankly been pretty skeptical of Callie's unilateral proclamation that she was going to be a drummer. Pixyl had never really cared much about music, so the whole idea had honestly sounded a little boring, even after Callie had tried to explain further. Now seeing and hearing the magic-synchronized Pantherkin doing the best she could to keep up, despite only having a few simple drums and not having whatever a 'hi-hat' and a 'crash cymbal' were, Pixyl was starting to rethink things. This 'drum set' that Callie had been trying to wildly draw in the air would need to be sized down for her, but maybe …?

The song over, Deduxia and the Illusionist both quickly slammed back a potion, the Gnome's blue while the Elf's was yellow. The Illusionist was actually looking a little flushed, with a bead of sweat on her forehead. Within a few seconds, though, the effects of the stamina potion seemed to kick in, and she perked up a bit.

"I'm good for about five or six more minutes," Deduxia called out after signaling a reminder for everyone to mute their amplifications. "Want to do one more to finish the set? Callie, do you have another?"

"Can we do something a little slower, maybe? Please?" the Pantherkin begged as the bassist handed her a yellow potion. "Seriously, what was that?"

"Not now, we'll discuss it later," Deduxia replied dismissively, focusing on Callie.

Honestly, Callie really didn't want to do another song. What she wanted to do was rush off the stage and sweep Pixyl into her arms, spin her around a few times like in the movies, and maybe disappear back into the moonlight, just the two of them.

Still, Deduxia's sense of urgency, and knowing there was only time for one more something-short, caused Callie to pull up her mental karaoke list again. She scrolled down, back, then back to the top, looking for something that would work. Slower? No, if this was the last song of the set, you couldn't end with something slow. That was just … wrong. Her father had taught her that. You need to end with a statement!

Callie then stopped her mental scrolling, realizing that she should simply end this thing with the same song her dad had always ended their show with. It did have the benefit of starting off slow, at least. "I've got one!" Callie said quickly. "Vanis wanted a slow dance, so send him your signal, Nekini."

Quickly her fellow Gnome waved, managing to catch Lena's attention before tapping the side of his nose with two fingers. In turn, Lena elbowed Vanis hard, leaving him rubbing his ribs as she pointed. Seeing the pre-arranged signal, he nodded and stood, putting out his hand to take Juniper's.

"Okay, Callie, run it through in your head, quickly," Deduxia ordered. She certainly wasn't wasting more than a moment of the rapidly ticking timer.

"Aww, that's sweet," the Illusionist said as Callie began her mental playback. "I like …". Then her voice trailed off, her eyes going round.

"That's not exactly a slow dance," Nekini chuckled.

"Well, it starts out that way, doesn't it?" Callie grinned. "Don't worry, he'll think it's funny. And if he doesn't, I'll take the heat. You gotta end big, right?"

"This certainly is big," Deduxia said, also laughing once. She clapped twice to the group. "You now know your parts. Places everyone." She bent and took up her fiddle again, Nekini did the same with the horn, and they both took their spots.

"This is going to kill me," the poor Pantherkin mumbled.

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Callie had first heard this song when she was a little girl while visiting her grandparents. It was actually a cover of the song, one of dozens out there by big names like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, although her mother happened to like the one by Michael Bublé. This version was sung, slow and swooning, by the one and only Aretha. Callie danced awkwardly in the living room, standing on her grandmother's toes as the two of them slowly moved in time to Aretha's haunting, beautiful voice.

Of course, as soon as the song was over, Callie's father and grandfather began to call out boos and jeers. They'd been watching from the entry, smiles on their faces, and soon added shouts of 'boring' and 'lame'. Callie couldn't believe they were dissing Aretha. You don't diss Aretha! Certainly not in Grandma's house!

"Now I'll show you how that song should be played," Callie's grandfather said, pointing for Callie to sit down. He went over to the shelf of CDs, running a finger along them to find the one he was looking for, and then pulled it out. Checking the track number on the back of the case, he popped it into the player and turned the volume up a few notches. Callie and her grandmother sat on the couch as the elder father and his son took positions, playing air-trumpet and air-saxophone in time with the initial slow music, before the song came alive. It was the same song, yet totally different, and it was the first time that Callie had really appreciated how a different style of music could be applied to the same thing to make it wholly new and unique.

In time, her father's band would come to use the song for their encore, starting with the lights low and the tempo slow, before finishing the night with an unforgettable finale, and Callie was going to do the same thing here. Yeah, Vanis might not appreciate it, but it was too late to change her mind.

"We're going to slow it down a bit," Callie called out. "Everyone grab their partner and hold them close." She glanced down at Pixyl, shooting her a wink, and then waited a couple more seconds while Vanis and Juniper found a spot, Lena stepping off to the side to watch. She started tapping with her foot, Nekini watching close and then starting up on the right beat, using his amplified horn to mimic the solo trumpet on the version that Callie played in her head.

Slow, quiet sounds played out, Callie singing and carefully accentuating her words with simple chords from her guitar for the first verse. She loved this version of the song, and it was one of her more-rowdy karaoke selections. On the floor, couples pulled each other close and swayed in time, Vanis standing tall and proper, as opposed to Ambria, who was aggressively buried in Moka's chest as he lightly petted the back of her head. Below, Callie's beautiful fangirl watched wide-eyed, and Callie made sure to send her a smile. Then, things got turned up a little bit for the second verse, with the Pantherkin adding in a light, rhythmic tapping, a few pulses of a big heart-shaped Illusionist light blinking in time over them.

Try a Little Tenderness was a song nearly a century old, recorded by big names dozens of times over the decades. But it was Otis Redding that made the music his own. His version changed it from a simple, almost-mournful, depression-era song into one packed with soul and energy, and this is what Callie channeled now. She channeled her dad, her grandfather, her great-grandfather, and the great rhythm and blues masters that had made them into what had ultimately made her.

Out on the floor, the dozen or so slow-dancers, which included Lady Winafria and her husband in addition to Vanis and Juniper, swayed together, not really sure how to move to what they were hearing for the first time, but doing their best. Chown was holding Lhawni from behind, her head leaning back and eyes closed, resting it on his shoulder, simply enjoying being embraced. Words and dancing? It was odd, but it worked. It was another Callie-thing that just somehow worked.

Slowly the song ramped up, and Callie's Inspiring Melody activated again without her even noticing. This time, it was filled with anticipation and eagerness, and people could feel a sense that something was coming. The other band members, already hyper-attuned to Callie's performance by Bard magic, were pulled further into the groove with her. Callie's magic was tiny compared to Deduxia's high-tier spell, but it was a beacon for them all to follow, and follow they did.

Vanis, who had been holding Juniper close as they danced, caught the sense of what was coming before others in the crowd, likely because of experience with his own Inspiring Melody skill. Casually, almost as if it had been choreographed, he gently spun the Dryad, handing her flawlessly off to Lena. He bowed, deeply, and gestured with his arm for them to return to the floor in his place. Lena shrugged, somewhat floppily handed her wine cup to the prince, and took over dancing duties.

Then, the music exploded and the illusionary lights blasted alive, creating showers of spark-like colors floating to the ground. Callie, eyes closed and her own magic alive, sang out. The audience, shocked for a moment, finally started to jump in time, Juniper almost as excitedly as the dreamer-revved Ambria now was. As for Vanis, he'd quietly pulled back into the shadows, but Callie could see him bouncing just a little as he clapped along, a smile on his face. That was good, at least.

As the song came to a conclusion, Callie grinned, throwing out a "Goodnight Camp Utora!" to the crowd, kissing the palm of her hand and waving before the final group downbeat. It was just like her dad would have done, and she'd learned from the best. Illusionary darkness descended, plunging the stage into black with finality. But after a few seconds, the illusion ended and light returned, Callie giving the excited and clapping audience another wave and a bow. She then gestured to the rest of the band, who were all waving from their places. Bowing once more, she faded back from the edge of the stage, away from the light.

Happy. That's what Camp Utora was right now. It was just what Midsummer was meant to be. Friends. Family. Old loves. Maybe even temporary new ones. Maybe even some of those that would last beyond temporary. An old and odd holiday, built around seeing beauty in things that were not so. The world was ugly out there, with Demons to the south, and the dead King Regents and an unknown enemy of the kingdom to the West. There were so many reasons why there shouldn't be any happiness, especially here, where soldiers to fight those very same Demons would soon depart. But nevertheless, at this little waystation in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, people found beauty in each other and in music and in their unified spirit, somehow pushed along by a purple-eyed, pink-haired and rather odd little Gnome from another world named Calliope Willow Archer.