What I Was Afraid Of · Track 42 · middle
Joyeuse
Joyeuse — Sword associated with Charlemagne. Register: fiction. This song is sung BY this weapon, in first person, about the one thing IT was afraid of. Find the fear that is true of this specific object, not a generic one.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
[Intro] They leave their fingerprints on the glass. They whisper a name I only know from the plaques. [Verse 1] I am a timeline stitched in wire and thread, My crossguard forged in a later century's fire. I am a relic of a man I am not sure I met, Held together by the gravity of their desire. I wear the gold of an empire's decline, But the steel underneath is a patchwork design. [Chorus] I am Joyeuse, the joyous, the bright, Forged in the telling, bathed in the light. But I am terrified of the quiet inside this room. I don't remember his hand. I don't remember the emperor's tomb. I crowned thirty kings who swore they felt his ghost, While I just tried to hold my pieces close. [Verse 2] My pommel is exactly one hundred and sixty-three grams of gold, Hollowed out for a splinter they say pierced a god. It pulls at the base of my spine like a tether. When the trembling monarchs reached for me, The hand anticipated a weight it had already been told— Adopting a balance that was never really mine. I let them believe I was holding the kingdom together. [Chorus] I am Joyeuse, the joyous, the bright, Forged in the telling, bathed in the light. But I am terrified of the quiet inside this room. I don't remember his hand. I don't remember the emperor's tomb. I crowned thirty kings who swore they felt his ghost, While I just tried to hold my pieces close. [Bridge] What if I am only the velvet I rest upon? What if the myth is just a story they told the iron To make it brave in the dawn? I have been polished so many times, I am running out of the original crime. [Outro] The gallery empties out. The security lights engage. I am a weapon stitched from centuries, Waiting for a memory of a man I never knew To come back to the glass and claim me... or at least, tell me who I was.