They walked until the sun almost set, eating sparsely and, in her case, drinking another potion and a pill when her headache returned. Amycus concentrated on his leaf with a focus that was almost scary, but understandable. After all, after thinking of himself as magicless, to find some hope would have been enough to drive someone.
"I think this place is all right," Amycus said when they were on a small clearing, ten minutes away from the river. She nodded, the clearing was big enough for two adults, so they were going to be fine. Amycus was a kid and she was a young malnourished teen. It was perfect for them.
"Okay, let's search for some dried branches and--what are you doing?" he asked then he saw her picking whatever branches she found. He was ready to protest, but when he saw her start to dry the wood with the use of the natural prana, he shut up.
She placed all the wood in the middle and nodded at him. "Would you light the fire? I will take a bath first in the river."
He was going to protest but then he leaned closer and sniffed her. "Yeah, you need it."
Oh, you little bastard.
She humphed and turned around towards the direction of the river, flipping her hair in his direction and giving him a mouthful of dirty, oily hair.
When she heard him splutter, she nodded.
He deserved it, she thought as she walked. Though when she was sure she was far away from the camp, she leaned on a nearby tree and just focused on her breathing. Her headache might be almost gone but that didn't mean that the sudden movement she made didn't affect her. That, combined with her aching body was enough to make her sight turn black for a moment.
And why was she bothering to hide all of this from Amycus? Well, for one, she felt responsible for him. He was just a kid that had been sold to be a slave a couple of days ago. That left marks in one's psyche. He didn't need more to worry about. Maybe sometime in the future, she would confide him her worries, but until that moment, she didn't want to add her baggage onto him.
Letting out a sigh, she hummed a little as she kept walking towards the river. Though she stopped dead in her tracks when she discovered a problem.
She couldn't sing the lower notes.
"Probably this body not used to sing," she muttered, as she changed to another tone, and then another. When the problem didn't resolve itself, she did a simple scale with her hum and then by stretching a vocal. Her voice was better doing the high notes, while the low notes hurt her a little.
Well, there was no reason to deny it any longer. Still, she couldn't stop her voice from quivering as she whispered, "I-I'm not a mezzo-soprano anymore...?"
Weirdly enough, from all the things that have happened since she appeared in this world, this discovery was the one that made her want to cry.
Alula gulped and not caring how itchy her throat felt from the tears she was holding, she sang a song using her head register.
Her throat felt itchy from not being used to sing, but still, she did it well. It was high and sweet.
It was perfect.
The river was close enough to hear, so without thinking twice she ran and threw herself into it. She took her clothes off and scrubbed herself hard, trying to not think of Old Ma and how she used to sing to her in her Mezzo-soprano voice Houston's, Morissette's, and Joplin's songs in those times she refused to speak. How she started singing some of Pausini's songs after she found out how she was half-Italian.
The first time she talked to her was to sing. Old Ma was sick and couldn't sing those days, but she still tried. For Alula. So she stopped her and sang Morisette's 'That I would be good'. She did it well enough considering she hadn't talked in weeks but afterward, she was the one with a throat ache, as she wasn't used to it and didn't know the technique either.
That was when Old Ma decided to teach her instead of only singing.
Alula used to sing when she was traveling alone. While she was being prosecuted more harshly, she used all types of art to distract herself from the harsh reality as Old Ma always said it was important to have hobbies, to rest, and not only focus on being stronger. She sang, draw, and danced.
Old Ma sucked at drawing and was too old to dance even if she kept telling her how much she liked to do it when she lived in Cuba, so their thing was singing.
It was theirs, but now...
"A new life, a new opportunity," she murmured, but this time there wasn't any joy in her tone. She tried to think of all the singers she knew that were sopranos, but she could only think of the mainstream pop ones that had been on the radio recently before she died.
That didn't mean she didn't have some of their songs written on one of her books, though. Maybe with some luck and growth, mostly growth, her voice can change back to a mezzo-soprano after the puberty of this body is over. Though that doesn't mean she will stop working on her range. Maybe some days she will be back to singing the songs of the artists she liked. And if she can't, who says she cannot try and change her favorite songs to the range she was most comfortable.
With that somewhat happy thought, she nodded to herself and started singing the couple of songs she liked, trying to get used to not sing using her chest voice, but her head, instead.
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