[with acknowledgments to Blind Guardian, and dedicated to the RPC members who introduced me to them, and thus broke a most stubborn writer's block]
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"Look, lad, I heard about that little grouse of yours with your mother. Someone needs to talk to you, that's for sure, but we both know you aren't going to listen to her right now. You're right, too, but now you're going to listen to me, and don't even pretend you're too good to hear what I have to say: I already have your attention, and you've been staring at my chest for the past five minutes even though I run this show, I'm twenty years your senior, and I could have you booted from the troupe with a word. But it takes guts to keep smiling like that when you're caught, and guts you have to go with your gifts, so I'm going to talk to you like a man, now, and not the boy your mother still sees."
Not a boy, but the man, ten years older, knelt in the loam around the ruin. The soil was still laced with grey, tinged by ash, and seemed to be fertile enough for the wildflowers and weeds that grew around the dilapidated stone foundations. It was perhaps more fitting than tombstones and epitaphs, for those who had fallen here.
Now you all know of bards and of songs
But when they have fallen, who closes their eyes?
On currents of Aether we may meet again
But now hear my song of the one who remains
Let's sing the wanderer's song...
"Now, hear me. She's wrong, and she's right. First, you're one of us, a musician, a performer, and you're already proven to me what you can do. Keep it up, lad, and you'll never need fear for your future. Your mum, she's a seamstress, and a good one, but that's her role with us, and it's all she really understands. She's not going to stand before the crowds. You aren't like her, and you're not going to be, but still, you could stand to be a little more attentive to what it means to be a family, blood or not."
The Shroud had nearly reclaimed the entire site; only a few broken walls and chimneys, and half of the old well, were even recognizable as having been once part of a village. The elementals' will must have descended swiftly here, for the saplings were of chest-height, and the ivy and lichen were already thick on the scorched stone. If there were bones, they were buried under nearly a decade of soil, mud and grass. He simply knelt, feeling the dampness of the ground even through leather trousers. Nothing was here but ruin, recovery, and himself; even his bow and lute, the most precious things left to him, lay against the thick oak twenty yalms away; he'd felt it somehow wrong to bring them closer, as if some spirit of fell fortune lingering here might taint them. He reached his hand into the soil, scooping up half a handful, and then noticed the feather: it was a fulm long, dirty brown, greasy, and... not old even in the slightest. It was but a few fulms away. Then he heard the crack and crush of leaves behind him, and a frustrated hiss.
Tomorrow will take us away, far from home
No one will ever know our names but the one bard that remains
Tomorrow may take them away, the thoughts of past days
All will be gone, except the memory of song
"Nate, love, no matter how much she frustrates you - and believe me, lad, I know she's a challenge - she's kin, your only blood kin. Not that the blood matters so much; we're all mutts here, you know that, but this has to be a family, or else we're all just a bunch of prancing fops and reprobates. You need her, right now, and she needs you, just like we all need to be in synch with one another. If you need a surrogate mum who understands you a little differently, I'll try my best, but I'm a busy woman, lad, and it's going to be a little awkward if you can't keep that libido of yours in check."
Nathan leaped to his feet and turned to look behind him as fast as he could; the slippery soil slowed his rise, but it was still in time to see the pair of Ixal bearing down on him, charging, one with a wickedly barbed axe, and one with spear gripped double-handed. Ixal... the feathers matched the one he'd seen on the ground nearby. Ixal... just like the ones responsible for this lost hamlet's immolation... his troupe, his family, all lost... so long ago. His bow was too far away to reach in time. Jumbles of pragmatic memories flashed nearly unbidden - barfights, wrestling matches with the troupe, friendly sparring. A brand new crease formed on his forehead, and he crouched, reaching for the only thing nearby - a fist-sized stone near his feet.
There's only one song left in the mind
Tales of the boy who was dragged far from here
Now the bard's songs are distant; will they end here?
Will no one remain, to tell the tales of the fallen,
A buried story...?
"It's going to be a struggle every day, but that doesn't make it a bad thing, lad! It means we're alive, and we live on no one's terms but our own and the good will of the Elementals, and lucky for us the Woods love singers and dancers so much that we could likely torch half of the Sylphlands and just get a little warning earthquake. I don't promise you easy, love, but I promise that every one of us is here for the other, because it's no one bard's song - it's all of ours. It always will be, love. Always. So chin up, and get to practice. Just because you can hit those low notes, m'dear, doesn't mean you've mastered them!"
There were rumors heard for malms around, spread further at Buscarron's Druthers, that Ixal had been heard in the outer Shroud, screeching, in areas of the wood where sentients only rarely visited these days, after the Calamity. No matter, the drinkers said - the elementals hadn't yet grown so weak that they were unable to muster any defense, and the lack of any further hubbub or rumors satisfied most that the Treants, or the Wild Hogs, or even perhaps the Sylphs, had dealt satisfactorily with the intruders.
And if a tall bard of apparent Highland stock, an uncommon sight in these woods, stumbled into the Druthers, bruised and bloodied and clutching at a broken bow and a scratched lute case, and asked for the strongest drink he could get, that, too, was not unusual here. The Shroud was full of stories, and perhaps he'd sing of them later, and lift everyone's spirits.
Tomorrow will take us away far from home
No one remembers their names but the bard whose song will remain
But tomorrow, the sun will still rise, so look to the skies,
The ballad may not be the same
But the bard's songs still will remain.
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Look, lad, I heard about that little grouse of yours with your mother. Someone needs to talk to you, that's for sure, but we both know you aren't going to listen to her right now. You're right, too, but now you're going to listen to me, and don't even pretend you're too good to hear what I have to say: I already have your attention, and you've been staring at my chest for the past five minutes even though I run this show, I'm twenty years your senior, and I could have you booted from the troupe with a word. But it takes guts to keep smiling like that when you're caught, and guts you have to go with your gifts, so I'm going to talk to you like a man, now, and not the boy your mother still sees."
Not a boy, but the man, ten years older, knelt in the loam around the ruin. The soil was still laced with grey, tinged by ash, and seemed to be fertile enough for the wildflowers and weeds that grew around the dilapidated stone foundations. It was perhaps more fitting than tombstones and epitaphs, for those who had fallen here.
Now you all know of bards and of songs
But when they have fallen, who closes their eyes?
On currents of Aether we may meet again
But now hear my song of the one who remains
Let's sing the wanderer's song...
"Now, hear me. She's wrong, and she's right. First, you're one of us, a musician, a performer, and you're already proven to me what you can do. Keep it up, lad, and you'll never need fear for your future. Your mum, she's a seamstress, and a good one, but that's her role with us, and it's all she really understands. She's not going to stand before the crowds. You aren't like her, and you're not going to be, but still, you could stand to be a little more attentive to what it means to be a family, blood or not."
The Shroud had nearly reclaimed the entire site; only a few broken walls and chimneys, and half of the old well, were even recognizable as having been once part of a village. The elementals' will must have descended swiftly here, for the saplings were of chest-height, and the ivy and lichen were already thick on the scorched stone. If there were bones, they were buried under nearly a decade of soil, mud and grass. He simply knelt, feeling the dampness of the ground even through leather trousers. Nothing was here but ruin, recovery, and himself; even his bow and lute, the most precious things left to him, lay against the thick oak twenty yalms away; he'd felt it somehow wrong to bring them closer, as if some spirit of fell fortune lingering here might taint them. He reached his hand into the soil, scooping up half a handful, and then noticed the feather: it was a fulm long, dirty brown, greasy, and... not old even in the slightest. It was but a few fulms away. Then he heard the crack and crush of leaves behind him, and a frustrated hiss.
Tomorrow will take us away, far from home
No one will ever know our names but the one bard that remains
Tomorrow may take them away, the thoughts of past days
All will be gone, except the memory of song
"Nate, love, no matter how much she frustrates you - and believe me, lad, I know she's a challenge - she's kin, your only blood kin. Not that the blood matters so much; we're all mutts here, you know that, but this has to be a family, or else we're all just a bunch of prancing fops and reprobates. You need her, right now, and she needs you, just like we all need to be in synch with one another. If you need a surrogate mum who understands you a little differently, I'll try my best, but I'm a busy woman, lad, and it's going to be a little awkward if you can't keep that libido of yours in check."
Nathan leaped to his feet and turned to look behind him as fast as he could; the slippery soil slowed his rise, but it was still in time to see the pair of Ixal bearing down on him, charging, one with a wickedly barbed axe, and one with spear gripped double-handed. Ixal... the feathers matched the one he'd seen on the ground nearby. Ixal... just like the ones responsible for this lost hamlet's immolation... his troupe, his family, all lost... so long ago. His bow was too far away to reach in time. Jumbles of pragmatic memories flashed nearly unbidden - barfights, wrestling matches with the troupe, friendly sparring. A brand new crease formed on his forehead, and he crouched, reaching for the only thing nearby - a fist-sized stone near his feet.
There's only one song left in the mind
Tales of the boy who was dragged far from here
Now the bard's songs are distant; will they end here?
Will no one remain, to tell the tales of the fallen,
A buried story...?
"It's going to be a struggle every day, but that doesn't make it a bad thing, lad! It means we're alive, and we live on no one's terms but our own and the good will of the Elementals, and lucky for us the Woods love singers and dancers so much that we could likely torch half of the Sylphlands and just get a little warning earthquake. I don't promise you easy, love, but I promise that every one of us is here for the other, because it's no one bard's song - it's all of ours. It always will be, love. Always. So chin up, and get to practice. Just because you can hit those low notes, m'dear, doesn't mean you've mastered them!"
There were rumors heard for malms around, spread further at Buscarron's Druthers, that Ixal had been heard in the outer Shroud, screeching, in areas of the wood where sentients only rarely visited these days, after the Calamity. No matter, the drinkers said - the elementals hadn't yet grown so weak that they were unable to muster any defense, and the lack of any further hubbub or rumors satisfied most that the Treants, or the Wild Hogs, or even perhaps the Sylphs, had dealt satisfactorily with the intruders.
And if a tall bard of apparent Highland stock, an uncommon sight in these woods, stumbled into the Druthers, bruised and bloodied and clutching at a broken bow and a scratched lute case, and asked for the strongest drink he could get, that, too, was not unusual here. The Shroud was full of stories, and perhaps he'd sing of them later, and lift everyone's spirits.
Tomorrow will take us away far from home
No one remembers their names but the bard whose song will remain
But tomorrow, the sun will still rise, so look to the skies,
The ballad may not be the same
But the bard's songs still will remain.
"But in the laugh there was another voice. A clearer laugh, an ironic laugh. A laugh which laughs because it chooses not to weep."