To Cardinal Sangallo, First Tribunal, CC to the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Tribunals: Attached please find the investigative report on the adverse impact on Sankta empathy caused by music from an unknown source in the recent calamity at Faber Central Hospital, and Executor Federico's report on Arturia Giallo's escape from captivity... All relevant files pertaining to Arturia Giallo are hereby sealed, and her citizenship privileges listed in Clauses 1 through 13 of the Laterano Constitution restored. —Yvangelista XI Yvangelista XI signs the letter with one hand and reaches out towards the dried cactus on the table with another. The dessert bowl on the desk was a little far away, but someone gently nudges it towards him. 'Ah, talk about timing.' The old man looks up at his visitor. 'I just signed off on a document about you.' 'A rather generous treatment, is it not?' Arturia sits down opposite the old man with a smile. 'Does the new Law permit offsetting transgressions with merit?' 'The whole city heard your performance that evening, after all... Not a particularly Lateran tune, but moving nonetheless.' 'It wasn't a particularly Lateran scene to begin with.' 'True. Incidentally, you called it 'offsetting transgressions with merit'? I was rather under the impression that you had never acknowledged your past deeds as 'transgressions'.' 'It is important for a musician to reflect on their tastes and habits from time to time.' 'Oh?' 'Someone who loves the changing clouds inevitably dislikes the monotony of sun and rain. Once, when I touched those dull and tedious voices of the heart, I felt like a cloudbeast obsessed with cleanliness falling into a pit of mud. I walked the land in search of great, dynamic souls. I visited the lost realm of the Zhayedan, the Witch King's Pavillon... missing out on thousands of other souls in the process. I know I must have passed those people by with a frown.' 'Ouch, my tooth... Go on, I'm listening.' 'But the one performance in my life I have the least regrets about was when I greeted night falling upon Laterano that day, with a group of strangers singing hymns in Bolívarian. Might I be so bold as to claim that I changed my listeners in some measure? Perhaps the dynamic changes I've been seeking all this time begin with my own fingertips. They belong to the future, not to the past. 'I want to retrace my path, Your Holiness. Perhaps I will encounter an audience I once overlooked, perhaps even those who play music without souls...' 'You mean the Seaborn?' 'Perhaps.' 'So you came to say farewell. It sounds like your path is a long one.' 'Whose isn't?' Arturia caresses the strings on her cello, as her smile grows even brighter. 'Fortunately, I have my cello.' 'That's true.' Young and old sit opposite one another, both working their jaws hard. The conversation is over, and nothing shall interrupt this moment of tranquility. After all, the young Sankta's journey will soon begin once she is done with that piece of dried cactus.