The Rope

Vittoria song - Testament RPG Lyrics: I trusted once a thing that breathed. I do not know how people do. Now I trust water. I trust glass. I trust a surface I see through. [Verse 2 | strings entering, cello answering each line] I keep a glass inside my coat. I offered it to him one day. He laughed and set it on the table. It is the last I gave away. [Chorus | strings open out, voice stays level, the bass unchanged] The ship is gone. The rope is not. It holds the post out in the rain. I have untied a thousand knots. I leave that one. And leave again. [Verse 3 | harpsichord joining the pulse, voice harder] He told them what he knew out loud. He thought his people could be told. The things I hold I do not say. What's said out loud is what you've sold. [Verse 4 | the same drive, timpani entering] Nobody does a thing for love. Not on my docks. They all get paid. One man did one thing for nothing. Look at the price that nothing made. [Chorus | fuller, strings doubling the cello, the bass unchanged] The ship is gone. The rope is not. It holds the post out in the rain. I have untied a thousand knots. I leave that one. And leave again. [Verse 5 | wordless voices far behind, cello harder] The one who paid still keeps her chair. I have a letter. She has years. A debt I cannot call today is not forgiven. In arrears. [Verse 6 | the cello takes the grief, the voice stays flat] There is a chair nobody sits in. There is a laugh I do not hear. I was not built to say I miss him. I say it once. I say it clear. [Verse 7 | the line flattens out completely] They say it was the thing he told them. They counted it, and they were right. I counted it a different way. I have not changed it since that night. [Final chorus | everything, the whole orchestra, the bass unchanged] The ship is gone. The rope is still. It holds the post out in the rain. I have untied a thousand knots. I leave that one. And come again. [Outro | the orchestra falls away, only the ground bass and the voice remain] I could untie it in a minute. I have not done it in six years. I go down there when the tide is low and I say nothing. No one hears.