The Unreached Duchy

Chapter 4

It is also seen as an immense honour to be selected for the Royal Orchestra, almost all members received the opportunity for a solo part in a festival performance once every year. The Royal symbol on an instrument is the easiest way to determine if someone is a member of the Royal Orchestra or not.

The lutes and lyres have 4 strings each and are usually made from wood; however, there are a few masons that are talented enough in their craft that they can make any instrument out of any material. The strings are usually made out of tail hair from animals like horses. The ocarinas are usually made out of wood but can also be made out of stone and hardened lava, the hardened lava is more popular among the human because it can be carved a lot easier than the wood can.

The ocarina is the only instrument that has more than one variation, it can have seven holes, twelve holes, or sixteen holes. The ocarinas with seven and twelve chambers has one chamber on the inside and the ocarinas with sixteen holes has two chambers inside. One lava mason, Rusalka, is quite skilled at making all three variations and is known for her mason skills throughout all of Makara.

Rusalka’s a mermaid that lives in the city of Maimakterion. Rusalka can also play the ocarina, she prefers the seven holed ocarina, and is even in the Royal Orchestra. Rusalka is not just a musician and a lava mason, she’s the one who figured out how to make the ocarina from lava and figured out a way to perfect it that was accepted by the Royal Orchestra. Rusalka is average height for a Mermaid, 5 feet 5 inches tall; she has bright orange eyes with light blue hair highlighted with natural light pink streaks that are striking against her reddish-brown skin and orchid scales with a red orange spot on her tail.

There’s another Royal Orchestra member that is known for her ocarinas but in a different way. Another Mermaid, Senara, who plays all three variations of the ocarina. Rusalka actually made one of each variation out of lava for Senara as a recent birthday present. Senara is known for her talent of playing the ocarina and for her collection of them. Senara has collected ocarinas in every known wood, rock, and lava; she also has one of every variation. She’s quite proud of her ocarina collection.

Rusalka and Senara are best friends; Senara is not nearly as tall, she’s only 5 foot even, with green eyes and black hair with red highlights. Senara has caramel brown skin and dark red scales with white vertical stripes.

Lyres are the favorite instruments of both Arausio and Avesta, so they’re played at every festival and celebration, as well as, they are used for decorations around Makara throughout the year. Most of the Gods and Goddesses favor the lyre because of the sound and how it can be made to look. Lyres are usually small enough to be played on your lap but they can be made big enough to stand on their own and be played. Humans make their lyres usually out of tortoise shells and rams horns with six strings, the residents of Makara prefer to make them out of wood with four to six strings. Rusalka and a few other musicians are working on trying to figure out how to make lyres out of hardened lava.

A lyre is an instrument with a bottom that looks like the bottom half of the moon with two straight pieces extending up from the bottom and a single bar going across the top. The four to six strings used to play the lyre are attached to the bottom part and are stretched up to the bar going across the top. Each string is tuned to a certain sound by small tuning pegs at the top. Each member of the Royal Family has a lyre with their favorite creatures carved out of wood and into the bottom of the lyre.

The Royal Orchestra plays at every festival for Zodiacs, Alaiceaus, and Cassini. The Makaran Royal Orchestra also played at the castle upon request of the Royal Family, which usually happened only once a year at the Skirophorion Day. Everyone always looks forward to the festival because all of the shops in the kingdom would put out their very best wares, the pastries would make their very best pastries and cakes, the florists would make their best arrangements, and the stables would make sure their animals looked their best.

Queen Hun’s favorite instrument is the Lute, which is an instrument with a back shaped like a bowl but with a longer end to one side, as well as, a flattened bottom side and a single piece of material, usually wood, on the open side with four holes for the sound to come out through. There is a post on the inside of the lute that is attached to the bowl shaped bottom on one end and the flat piece on the other end to help support the flat piece.

The lute has a flat, elongated piece of wood that is attached to the longer end of the base that has a smaller piece bended backwards with pegs to tune the strings with. There is five strings on a lute that are attached near the flattened bottom side and are stretched to attach to the elongated neck part of the lute. All of the musicians, including Senara and Rusalka, have agreed that lutes should not be made out of lava because it does not produce the correct sound that is pleasing to the Queen’s ears.