A Major Faux Pas

The Festival of Sound is a jovial event that promotes the sharing and uniting of culture, through the wonderful live performance of endlessly diverse music; an opportunity to celebrate differences and the shared enjoyment of music that transcends immense barriers of tradition, space, and time. Every ten years, The Rhauam, the galaxies most esteemed musicians, host the event, and invite any and all who can carry or enjoy a tune to their home world to partake in the challenge. There, the incumbent masters challenge other species to perform music, with the instrument of the master’s choice. For 150 years, audiences have gotten a spectacular show, not only of the incredible skill and artistry of the master’s craft, but also of the continuously inventive ways that other species play alien instruments.

For 150 years, this event has been a beacon of cultural exchange through friendly competition. Unfortunately, this year, the Armazi got wind of it. And they don’t know the meaning of friendly competition. The Armazi’s desire for superiority extends outwards from their greatest skill, War, and into the fields of Fine Art, Music, Architecture, and everything else one individual or culture could be better at than another. To them, there is no second best. Thus, when the knowledge of the Festival of Sound made it’s way to the ears of the Armazi, their musicians began to work tirelessly to master these alien instruments, with mixed results.

This year was the first time an Armazi had ever entered into the competition. His name is Arahh Superior, and months before the event, word of his mastery of the Violin spread throughout the musical communities of space like wildfire. Any alien species mastering a human instrument was no small feat, as the recently discovered human culture had only been known to exist for less than two centuries. But for such an imposing, warlike race to exercise the finesse and grace necessary for mastery of the violin was unheard of.

He arrived, punctually, outfitted in an immaculate white suit, an attempted facsimile of the ancient human suits. However something clearly had been lost in translation as the material clung awkwardly to his bulky form. Late into the festival, it was finally time for the two violinists to meet. The incumbent master, Маэстро Мстислав Волкович Соколов(Maestro Mstislav Volkovich Sokolov), extended his hand for a customary handshake, as a sign of respect and sportsmanship, but Arahh kept his hands at his side and merely cocked his head then nodded weakly. Though off-put, the maestro looked relieved, having sized up the enormous vice clamps at the ends of his opponent’s arms and valuing the longevity of his own delicate human hands.

Arahh picked up his violin and began, with little show or pretense, to play a somber, powerful piece, reaching a climax filled with the spirit of action, resembling in structure an Armazi war chant. Arahh made deft use of all eight fingers, switching back and forth between the strings with speed and accuracy entirely unattainable for human hands, then after a pregnant pause, the begin of a grave diminuendo finishing with a note that hung in the air over the rapt audience, heavy but soft, like a warm breeze during a cold night, a perfectly crafted mélange of the Armazi and Human culture. The crowd erupted with applause, thunderstruck by the affect and creativity of his performance. After the cheers died down, Sokolov drew his bow to his violin, and an ancient Elegy began to flow from the instrument, a piece lost to time. Tenderly plucked from history, the experience and atmosphere that washed over the theatre from the musicians bow made it immediately apparent why Sokolov was known as the master. The graceful movement, the effortless and delicate fingers that produced a memory of old; stirring and soul-wrenching. The audience immediately sprung to their feat, tears in their eyes (for those who had tear ducts), and Sokolov bowed daintily, unaware of the incredible ire and contempt that was boiling within Arahh, who stood behind him, heaving. Before anyone could react, Arahh grabbed Sokolov by his collar and beat him to death with his violin.

The exact origin of the vicious Russo-Armazi conflict is nebulous, but most historians figure it was the murder of Mstislav Volkovich Sokolov at the hands of Arahh that ignited the powder-keg of war, one that explains the trade embargo that still remains in effect 50 years later between the ЧМСРР(Человеческая Межпланетная Социалистическая Республика России) or HISRR(Human Interplanetary Socialist Republic of Russia) and the Armazi.

art and story credit: Declan McVerry