Remember an Afternoon

[[I feel like this prompt got a little off topic... but here it is!]]

Gaeron sighed as he leaned his head back on the headrest of the seat. The air was stifilingly hot, and the old fan that had been installed on the building’s celing did little to cool the air. Gaeron was stuck here for the time being, however, until the council was through with their discussion of what Gaeron’s fate would be, now that they had solved the mystery of his lineage.

The boy ran a hand over the hard bone that now protruded from his skull, running his fingers along the curled edges. He had almost had a panic attack when the healer’s spell finally took effect, and the appendages that he had never known he had revealed themselves.

Suddenly, a sound drifted in from the window, the hole in the wall leading to a sort of empty lot. Nothing but a few drab species of weeds had taken root in the space, leaving it prime gathering ground for the youth who lived in the area. Ten or eleven of them were there now, and Gaeron found himself drawn to the window to watch as the children ran around, chasing each other and generally just doing what kids do. Abruptly, after a few minutes of mayhem, the children all stopped what they were doing. An older Thoull, a man with snow white hair and something strapped to his back walked onto the lot. The children immediately gathered around him, chattering eagerly, and the old man smiled a gap-toothed smile as he took a seat on a well-worn stump that was situated roughly in the middle of the lot. The children stood around him, giving him a bit of room as he unstrapped the object and placed it on the ground. Gaeron could see now that it was a drum of some sort, and the man placed it between his legs, letting the hollow bottom rest on his feet so that it was pointing a little ways out. The kids, at the old man’s gesture, quieted down and stood expectantly as the man seemed to prepare himself.

What followed was something Gaeron had never seen, and would never forget. The old man tapped the drum gently a few times, as if getting a feel for an instrument. Then, all of a sudden, the years seemed to fall away from him as he beat out a wild tattoo of beats, and the kids all cheered, before they began dancing around him in a frenzy that only a group of excited children could produce. Then -as if the whole thing had been planned- the kids all began to sing.

Gaeron couldn’t tear his eyes away, and couldn’t believe his ears. It was as if the kids were giving a performance, but to no one but themselves. They didn’t sing all in unison, as you would expect children to do, but instead seemed to just know the harmonies and melodies, countermelodies and chords, all without one word of direction to unify them in their song.

Then, as suddenly as it had all began, the music, and the dancing, and the singing and the celebrating stopped, and the children all waved goodbye to one another, and gave hugs and kisses to the old man before sprinting off in separate directions, to what Gaeron presumed were their homes.

It was an afternoon that Gaeron knew he would never forget.