As the sun rose in the lands a sonorous note started to echo through the Virens forest. It started as one single nose held for a few moments, before it picked up into a full song. That song had started nearly an hour ago and was still going strong, the notes being carried for a good mile in all directions from the source. However with how the sound of whatever instrument was being played echoed so much and how loud is carried its sound it was difficult to pinpoint where the source was located.

As the song continued, being more boisterous as time passed, if someone did follow the sound far enough to the source, what they would find would be… unexpected. Up on a small knoll was the musician, bouncing around in the air enthusiastically in what only could have been described as a dance. With all his eyes closed as he played there was a huge smile on his face as he blew air into the instrument, filling the bag with air and the sound was resonating out of the three pipes sticking out the other side of the bag. Ghostly hands were pushing against the inflated bag while the musician’s… tentacles were closing and opening the holes on the instrument which was controlling the notes that were played.

As the musician continued to play and bob around as he floated his spherical body with dull brown skin, one of the eyes on one of its four eye stocks opened and looked around for a moment before closing again. To anyone who didn’t know what this creature was it would be a strange site to see it playing the pipes, to anyone who did know what the creature was, to see a beholder playing the bagpipes would certainly be a rare and probably once in a lifetime event.

The beholder continued to play and do its floating dance, oblivious as to how annoying or loud he might have been.

He had never been in this neck of the woods before, or these woods for that matter. It had been a daring escape from the creepy carnival, which consisted of Ilya clinging to the underside of a wagon until it passed by the Virens Forest. Figuring that no one would expect him to be here, the green-haired child rolled off and soon found himself lost in unfamiliar territory. "Is it Venti already? You're all getting ready to take a long Glaciem nap, huh?" The alraune said aloud to the trees. While this might seem odd, it wasn't unusual knowing what Ilya was. Despite his appearance, he was nothing more than a sentient, walking plant in a humanoid shape. Trees were plants too, so it wasn't strange for a plant to talk to other plants. The trees told him that their leaves were always this color year-round, then went back to dozing. Checking to see if the wagon he had come on was out of sight, Ilya then skipped along the leaf-littered paths until he heard a very loud sound coming from far away.

It was noisy but had a sort of pattern to it when you listened long enough. He had never heard of this sort of sound before, and his curiosity led him to a grassy hillside in the midst of the trees. The noise was getting louder, and it was hard to hear himself think. That was when he saw it–the source of the sound! It was coming from a big…floating…thing. It was like a bunch of tendrils, but with a body and lots of eyeballs. The thing making the really loud sound was that bag it was blowing and pushing. Ilya was both amazed and puzzled at the musician, whatever it was. As much as the noise started to hurt, he thought it was fun how the floaty eyeball thing was moving up and down in the air. Covering his ears, Ilya walked up the knoll until he was in front of the strange creature. Tilting his head back and forth, the green-haired child tried to make sense of what it was doing. Opening his mouth, he had to shout due to how loud the bagpipes were. "THAT THING YOU ARE PLAYING IS REALLY LOUD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" 

With all of his eyes closed the piper didn’t see the apparent adolescent walk up in front of him. Only when the young looking man shouted at him did the piper seem to notice that he was no longer alone up on the hill. One of the eyes on his stalks opened swivelled around until it stopped at the young man, at which point all four smaller eyes opened as he slowed his playing and made a quick ending to the song. Then the much larger central eye on his body opened up and now all five eyes were staring at the young man.

From his oversized mouth her dropped piece he had been blowing into, opening his mouth revealed a row of razor-sharp teeth and a long tongue. So the grin the young man got to some standards would be called unsettling. ”Aye, lad, I’m playin’ music!” He spoke in a clearly male voice. ”The pipes are a beautiful instrument, don’t ya think?” He floated lower to the ground and set the pipes carefully on it before floating back up so his main eye was level to the lad’s face. ”What brings ya all the way up here, laddy?”

Oooh. This floaty eyeball thing had a lot of eyes, and a very big mouth. Ilya wondered how it managed to fit all of its organs inside that limbless body, but didn't dwell on the thought for very long. His head was ringing even after the loud noises stopped, but he felt much better now. With a funny voice, the pipe-blowing thing explained he was playing music and that bag with sticks was its instrument. Putting a hand to his chin, the green-haired youth thought it over. "The pipes look very pretty, but the sound they make is kind of loud. Do they only make really loud sounds?" Ilya hadn't seen a wide variety of musical instruments before, so he didn't have much to base his expectations on. He'd heard music before, but it wasn't loud enough that you couldn't hear yourself think. When the beholder placed its great big eye in front of his face, the alraune wasn't bothered in the slightest. Everything was new to him in this big, wide world–and he hadn't picked up on what was dangerous yet. 

"Welllll–I was walking around talking to the trees when I heard your pipes playing. Do you live here?" Ilya wondered what sort of place a multi-eyed floaty thing like this would live. Since it could float, maybe it had a big ol' nest like a bird's? Or maybe it had a nest high up in a cave on a cliff face? Floating was probably how it got around since it didn't have arms or legs. "So what's it like having so many eyes? If I had so many eyes all over me, I'd get dizzy." Ever since his 'escape' from the glass box he was held in, this was the first time he was talking with a stranger all by himself. And after spending five to ten years without regular conversation, Ilya was quite chatty. 

”The louder they are the more the sound carries across the lands, for all to hear and enjoy!” The beholder replied happily, though the amount of times he had had rocks thrown at him for playing early in the morning near a village was a number he left out. What the beholder was happy about was that this young man wasn’t running away from him on site like so many others did.

When the boy replied what he was doing there the floating thing bobbed up and down once like it was nodding. ”Oh I don’t live in any one place, I do have one spot that I guess you could call my ‘home’, but it’s mostly storage for of my pipes and other trinkets I’ve collected over the years.” And they were many, many years at that. ”Ah, you’d get used to it, lad, we beholders are born with sometimes as few as one extra eye, but as we grow we get more eyes. Who knows, in time I may grow mor eye stalks. But having this many eyes it handy, I can see all around me at all times.” He chuckled. ”But, let me ask, what’s it like to have legs? How do you keep yourself upright all the time? Floating just makes life so much easier I think.”

"Oooh I see! So it's like plants growing more leaves as they get older too! I wonder how many eyes a really, really old beholder would have?" Ilya squinted as he tried to imagine it, but all he could think of was just a floating collection of eye stalks. And then those eye stalks had eye stalks too. He could agree that having so many eyes was good in making sure people didn't sneak up on you. The strange creature who called itself a 'beholder' then asked its question. The viridian-haired youth tilted his head back and forth as he mulled over it. "Well…it's like you're sitting on two big stalks–big enough to support your entire body with. You can feel stuff that happens through your legs, and you can move them. But I guess what you said makes sense; floating means you can't fall over or trip. Also if you hit your legs against something they hurt too." Stretching his arms up, he added: "I wish I could float whenever I wanted, too. It'd be easier to move around and find spots with lots of sun and water." As he talked, it was clear he was making a lot of plant-related comparisons. 

As the sunlight around the knoll shifted, Ilya started to feel sleepy. The dense canopy of the forest had prevented him from getting enough sun, and now he was getting tired. Letting out a yawn, he covered his mouth and began rubbing his eyes. "Oh excuse me… Hmm, Mister Beholder? Do you know how I can find my way out of this forest? Aside from here, it's pretty dim and I don't think there's a lot of safe places to settle in." When conditions weren't good, he could always burrow into the ground or make himself a protective bud to wait things out. But ideally that was something he wanted to do when it was nearing the end of Venti, preferably in a sunny location. Being rooted in the same spot was comfortable, but not very fun.