Jhin: The Dreaming Virtuoso

Dreams, oh how beautiful they are. Wouldn’t you want to dream forever? Live in a world of your own making, without pain or fear. What if you could enter this world at your own will but were ripped back out of it without your consent.

 

That is what happened to Kahda Jhin several hundred years ago. Back when the world was still whole, where war wasn’t in anyone’s head, where love thy neighbor wasn’t just a saying but a way of living. He grew up as a young boy in a mountain village. His father was a miner, his mother a healer. Everyone expected him to once become as strong as his father and as wise as his mother, but he has other plans with his life and so had fate.

 

At the ripe age of not even a year old did he first heard the magical sounds of a harp played by the side of the marketplace. Not old enough to speak or think yet, he was drawn to the sound. He would cry for hours if he didn’t get to be near music. Growing up the arts captured his young mind, playing make believe in the garden, dancing in a flower field, writing poems and tales of time at the age of six. It was not the path his parents intended him to take but they loved him nonetheless and wanting to give him a life of happiness they supported his dreams.

 

He became a Master of Arts. Dancing, acting, writing, painting. Anything to express his loving heart to the world.  He became a well-known bard, people came to his town just to see him perform, the audience loved him, maybe a little too much. The eyes on him, the applause, it was like a drug to him. The art became secondary; the attention became his first true love.

 

But soon after she would be stripped from him. The town was on the edge of two nations whose tension’s had become insufferable over the decades. As one minute disagreement caused a snowball effect of conflict. Soon smoke filled the air, armies on the move, entire land strips painted red. Kahda’s life would soon be thrown out of balance by none other than the enemy. Horses on the early morning horizon galloping towards his town. The men were told to stand and fight; the women and children ran and hid.

 

Khada, who had no experience with weapons, was tasks to take the others to shelter, which there was not a lot of. His mother was tasked to stay with the soldiers and tend to their inevitable wounds. Everything happened within seconds. The calm before the storm was interrupted by a hail of fire burning arrows. He grabbed whoever he could and ran for the mines, away from the sky, away from the outside and into a system he knew all too well.

 

It was just supposed to be for a while, until the threat was defeated, until the family elders would come for them. But it wasn’t they who showed their faces. Enemy soldiers came flooding the tunnels by the dozens. There was no way out, no way back, no way to defend themselves. There was only one way to avoid their slaughter, barricade and hide. But for how long would they survive down here, with no food or water to sustain themselves and fires being set left and right.

 

The last survivors of their people were now here, trapped inside the last possible room of the cave system dug by their ancestors, their town was probably turned into rubble by now, their people taken who knows where, if they were even alive.

 

With the Enemies about to break down the last wooden barricade they had set up, children crying, elders ready to fight them off with shovels as a voice called out to them for the great beyond. “Don’t fear my children, rest now, and when you wake, the world will be anew.”

 

They knew all hope was lost, the least they could do was soothe the children, and die comfortably without fear. They all set in a circle, mothers hugging their children, elders hugging their family as Kahda started playing a calming tune to drown out the shouting and screaming from the outside. And so, they all drifted off into a deep slumber what is supposed to be their last, but it wasn’t.

 

Kahda’s body laying dormant next to his brethren, but his mind had been freed from the earthly shackles. He entered a world of peace, a world of safety and love. His family reunited with him outside of the mine entrances. Their town had never looked more beautiful. He had no idea how that was even possible. Was he dead? Was this heaven?

 

Years passed in peace, as he lived on in his dreams for decades. And the dreams never changed, there was no death, no pain, no ageing. He had grown content to live here forever, wherever “here” was. Sometimes he would think back to the voice compelling them to sleep. Maybe some benevolent god showed mercy towards their dying group, maybe there was more out there but what did it matter, if he left and woke up, he would die. So rather live in happiness and peace than death.

 

Until one day the world became gray, the sun turning blindingly bright. Slowly one after another faded from view and only a handful of people from the mines remained. Then more voices called out to them from the great beyond.

 

But not the kind benevolent one from the day, rough, angry, then shocked. Words that couldn’t be comprehended, a language none of them knew. And indeed, alive they were, back in the mines, with their bodies completely unharmed. The barrier broken by men in strange clothes, strange smells, strange words. Confusion soon turned into anger as Kahda grabbed a rock and hit the man over his head with it.

 

How dare they wake him from his perfect dream; how dare they doom him to his death. The man fell onto the ground, unmoving, which gave him just enough time to look around him. From the people that he dragged into the mines only a handful were awake; the others had vanished. They were the sole survivors of history, the only remains of their town.

 

Since Kahda might have just killed a man, he began to panic a little. He jumped up and immediately lost his balance, it felt weird to walk again after sleeping for so long. He had yet to figure that out though. Whoever remained in the cave quickly scattered before any more of these strange men would come for them. The last remaining survivors fleeing in all directions into what was indeed a world anew.

 

Kahda ran to what he thought was the next town over but turned out to be this metropolis filled with new people and new smells and new sights. With a language he didn’t understand, a style he hadn’t seen before, technology from another world to him. Despite his age of mid-twenties at the time, he couldn’t make head or tails of it.

 

Only after painstakingly long research and translation attempts and many crazy looks did he figure it out. “A hundred years in the future?! How is that possible, how am I alive?”. It made no sense, unless the voice was true. “When you wake, the world will me anew”, whoever bestowed him the gift of entering into those dreams made sure he would survive. Why he was one of the chosen ones he didn’t know, but it would bother him for a long time to come.

 

After he learned of where he was, he had to build himself a new life. He still had all his belongings, all his instruments and tools, even if they seemed rather old compared to whatever was on the market at that time. He made his money with performances before and especially now he thought the people would be fascinated by his strange ways. His language long dead, his history rewritten it was up to him to tell his story.

 

But people had never changed, they always despised what they didn’t know and his music, as beautiful as it was fell on death ears. He had to relearn the language so his acting would only get him so far, and he hasn’t held a brush in years. His ego didn’t take this well. The once oh so famous performer was reduced to a street beggar. He kept telling himself that people will one day understand his genius again. That it only take enough time and fame to rise back to the top, whatever it takes. " I can't live without the euphoria of performance."

 

However, even the most patient man’s nerves were running thin. After another empty street performance, he just had enough. People just kept walking past him, not even sparing him a second glance, HIM the performer of a lifetime, HIM who people came to see from all over the world. And that day he just lost it, threw his notebook on the ground and shouted from the top of his lungs “Why are you not giving me the attention I deserve”, and started throwing things, rocks, bricks, sticks.

 

Every single person that walked past him during his performance got viciously attacked in the most poetic way possible. He could turn anything into art, even killing could become beautiful. He sang and danced as the fountain flooded red. By the time he was done he was completely out of breath, breathing heavily, hands and clothes covered in blood. All the hatred, from the people waking him, to the confusion and stress of starting his life anew in a world that did not bow at his tunes came to a head.

 

 Then he just went quiet again, packed his things and walked off fully dazed, thinking back to when all way okay, when he was with his family, before the attack and in his dreams. He knew he went too far, but at the same time not far enough. The world will kneel for his performances once again, he swore it. And those who woke him would pay dearly from ripping him for what was the closest thing to perfection he ever had.

 

He turned to the school of wizardry, the clan of the Bladesingers, and adopted a whole new art of performance. The art of killing. He turned his tunes into weapons, and every tool in his hands became deadly. He sought elegance in killing so he chose to study the style of the viper, skilled casters with whips and chains representing the chains that kept him in this word and refused to let him go back to his beautiful life of dreams. He made himself a mask of pure silver and molded it to his face. The entertainer of old times was gone, and a new area of art would come forth. He created a whole new public image, a performer to kneel for. He called this version of him Jhin, splitting the kind part from his destructive one.

 

He was willing to do anything to regain his status and love of the audience and gain the attention of his most respected client, the unknown deity that granted him the only bit of happiness he ever felt before. The Wizards noticed hope, eager this student of theirs was, but also how dangerous he became. This was far too much for their kind of Conjuration magic, so they referred him to someone else, a specialist, they called him “The Devil”

 

After explaining his situation to “The Devil” they made him an offer. They would grant Jhin access to a piece of music never seen by this world. It would captivate everyone’s hearts in an instant, if he were to finish it. Nobody ever managed to finish the piece before, even offering their own blood and soul to the pages but it never was enough, it never sounded perfect enough.

 

In his desperation, Jhin agreed, though Kahda refused. And it became an impossible struggle. In the end Jhin came to convince his other side to at least take a look, but neither of them knew the trap that lay behind those gates. Once he read and heard the notes even, he became captivated by its melody and locked himself away in the devil’s room in order to finish it. The sacrifices he made would leave him mentally scared forever. He cut pieces of himself just to have more blood to write with, ink wasn’t enough, the paper demanded blood.

 

He found himself bleeding, collapsed on the floor, and for a split second he was back in his perfect dream, he came close enough to death to see perfection once more. A single tear fell from under his mask as Kahda once more grieved for the life he lost, but Jhin had other plans. He forced himself to continue, ready to give his life for this piece, only to notice that he had done it. The sheet had been filled, the impossible task completed and it sounded like heaven on earth.

 

He stormed out of the room, leaving a trail of blood behind him be he didn’t care. He slammed the papers of the Devils desk before he eventually did collapse. The devil, who thought they could harvest just another soul from their trick was actually impressed by this man. He must be someone real special if he managed to beat their own tricks. They were true to their word and gave Jhin and Khada the melody and offered an open door for any… future… deals that needed to be made.

With the promise of fame and fortune he left the devils’ layer and tried his luck once more. As Jhin, the dreaming Virtuoso he started to gain some traction in the realms of arts again. The Devil didn’t lie, even though the crowd couldn’t understand his ancient language they loved his performances. And like a recovering addict Kahda came back to life under the applause, while Jhin thrived in his new ways.

 

Both were living in harmony, stopping the other side from completely taking over. With a flick of a switch, they could take each other’s places, while the other only resided in their heads.  "Which is the lie? The mask, or my face?"