A Cutting Lyric [Knife]

[Finn]

72 Searing 121
The Commons

The day was fine. Summers were mild in Kalzasi, and Finn was playing in a public square, leaning his haunches against an old monument. His lute case was open before him at his feet should passers-by choose to stop and listen for a while and, hopefully, offer appreciation that clinked and not just clapped. His seasons at the Academy were adding depth and breadth to his artistry, though the improvement of his music was a subtle thing. His instructors commented upon it. His family, when he had gone to visit, hadn't had the vocabulary to speak to it, but agreed that his music was certainly changing and, they thought, for the better. But then, they were always supportive of him.

It was late in the season of Searing now, and perhaps his audience wouldn't think him for the reminder, but he found himself singing a song about the autumnal season of Ash. It wasn't about the season at all, really. Or, rather, it was about a relationship whose season resonated with falling leaves and the anticipation of the cold.

In this autumn town where the leaves can fall
On either side of the garden wall
We laugh all night to keep the embers blowing
Some are leaping free from their moving carts
Stacking stones around their broken hearts
Waving down any wind that might come blowing
Ice move out when the field is cut
Serpents curl when the sun comes up
Songbirds only end up where they're going

Some get rain and some get snow
Some want love and some want gold
I just want to see you in the morning
Dogs lay down in the evening heat
Fish do worse when they leave the sea
Songbirds only end up where they're going

In this autumn town where the lights can change
Some get mercy and some get blamed
Some get lost when they feel the river flowing
It's all holy smoke and the flame dies fast
We hold our hats while the days fly past
Cold wind comes and we wait but it keeps going
Fathers, sons, and holy ghosts
All come back or they all come close
Songbirds only end up where they're going

Some get hard and some go home
Some want flesh and some want bone
I just want to see you in the morning.

When his song closed, it was lauded with both applause and tips. He blinked and smiled at the knot of people who had paused to listen to him play and sing, appreciative of their appreciation. It was a mite embarrassing when he lost himself in the music, though. At least, his new instructors called it a lack of professional control. But Finn felt that he put himself through the hours of technical drills in order to be able to let go and let it flow through him sometimes.

There was a time for everything, he supposed; a season for everything. He wondered what Ash would bring.

[Knife]

Knife did not wander around with his violin on hand. But he knew buskers - he was often one himself - and they would plant themselves in one spot and play as long as they had an audience, and sometimes even without. Knife did frequently wander the streets and shops near his apartment, however, and as a gregarious fellow, he tried to end the day having learned at least one new name. They did not have to be a friend, they didn't have to ever see each other again. He just wanted the name, and the face attached. It wasn't as much a mission as a game, to see if he could. He liked to people-watch, but he loved to people-know.

One such day had come, and on one such walk, he saw him. He enjoyed watching people as they performed. Some held a mask throughout the performance, and while they often performed wonderfully, he liked to see the people who could let go. The ones who could forget the world as they sang or played or acted. This man was the latter, and Knife just had to know his name.

The Fae concocted a plan, though as unnecessary as one must be for simply learning someone's name, he enjoyed his music and wanted to join in. Knife had left the throng of people mid-song and hastily retrieved his own instrument. He knew he should have asked, first, but perhaps having his instrument on hand would ease the question. He was quick, and managed to return as much of the throng of people disappeared.

With confidence, he walked up, instrument case in hand.

"Could I join you for your next song?" If he appeared eager, he assured himself it was on purpose. Or maybe he missed playing music with his family, with other people, and refused to admit it to himself. No, that couldn't be it.

[Finn]

"Oh, hello," he said to the tall fae'ethalan. With an impish smile, he asked, "Did my song about autumn conjure up a spirit of autumn? Sure, sure, you can set up here with me. Put out your case for tips so I don't have to do any maths to divvy up the spoils."

As he hadn't yet launched into a new song properly, he just let his fingers pick chords and melodies that suited his fancy. Perhaps people would see a second musician getting set up and decide to see what all the fuss was about. Fae'ethalan tended to stick together in their tribes, so seeing one playing with a simple human might attract some interest. Of course, Finn was interested too. Collaborating was always exciting, leading to new discoveries and honing that skill of improvisation that always came into play when playing with someone new.

His last major collaboration had led to a romantic collaboration. He didn't know if Arry was his boyfriend now, or just a lover. Not just anything, but sometimes he didn't know what the half-elf was thinking when it came to them. It was all new and Finn was just trying not to fuck it up.

"I only know a few fae'ethalan songs, and most of those are translated into Common. I really have to learn Valasren properly. The songs I do know, I memorized phonetically, which isn't the same, I know." Linguistics was suddenly something he could actually study now he was a student at the Academy on top of everything else he did. Sometimes he wondered how he had any energy at all, but it was probably just youth and a bit of discipline so he didn't quite burn the candle at both ends.

He considered offering things like his voice type—tenor—and asking after the man's own, but he supposed he would figure it out soon enough and that was all the more fun.

[Knife]

Knife smiled back and began the process of taking out his violin and rosining his bow. As his new friend spoke, he kicked his case open at his feet. After the mention of Valasren, he introduced himself in the language, and sighed. "In Common, I am Knife of Amber Sun Cutting Through Everfrost-Mountain Forests. Or Knife. Valasren is a beautiful language. Please tell me if you start learning. I can teach you how to swear like a native."

He wondered if any of the Fae'ethalan songs he knew had been ones played by his family. They weren't famous, as it were, but they had been passing through the city every Ash for long before he was born, and it would make sense that some of their regular songs would be caught in the net of culture absorbtion.

"My family comes through every Ash, perhaps you've learned one of their songs? Their most famous, I think. Summer's Final Gasp As the Wind Ushers in the Cold." It was played at the beginning of Ash in Kalzasi, and he remembered practicing it most out of any other song. As an adult, he realized that they made their most gold in this city than any other. The denizens of Kalzasi may have just really liked music.

Knife held the violin to his chin and immediately began to play. Rosined bow flew over strings in the start of a long song that felt both quick, loud, and ethereal. For a time. In a few minutes, the song would begin to slow, to mimic the chill of frost that was beckoned in as the season changed. Even if his new friend didn't know the song, he hoped that he would be able to find a spot to join in. His family had always loved their ability to improvise, after all, and variations even within their troupe were not uncommon.

[Finn]

The minstrel laughed in delight.

"Your name sounds like a song!" Then he chuckled, a soft echo of his earlier glee. "I suppose I will have to settle for Knife, though. And I'd happily learn all of Valasren if you're a tutor." He winked and then bowed without ceasing his playing on the lute. "I'm just Finn. From a village where most people don't even have surnames." He smiled, all self-deprecation.

"But being able to swear fluently is always a fun party trick if nothing else." He watched the tall man get his violin ready. Finn had played on one before. The left hand wasn't difficult once he knew what notes the strings were tuned to, but the technique of bowing was something he definitely hadn't mastered, nor the contortion required to allow the hand to hover over the strings properly, but they said fae'ethalan could manipulate their own bodies, so perhaps Knife had altered his anatomy to make it easier.

His brow furrowed at the name of the song. It didn't register in his memory, but all that meant was that it wasn't one he knew the words in Common translation. He ceased on the lute to listen as Knife began to play, then exclaimed quietly, "Oh!"

Smiling and nodding, he began to sway a little, his heel tapping the rhythm implied by Knife's playing. He took the music into his body, which helped him remember it more viscerally. He knew the music, if not the lyrics. Eventually, his strings began to tinkle along like the first tentative drops of a rain shower. He had an ear for things like this, but he settled in to accompany Knife, who clearly knew it better than he could as it came from his tribe and people.

[Knife]

Knife wasn't much of a singer, and he liked to let the strings tell the story. The song was long, one of the longer ones he knew, and he had just started. He was happy to hear Finn join in with accompaniment, though. The beginning of the song was comrpised almost entirely of quick short notes, intended to evoke the rushed feelings of summer's final perparations. Knife's hands breezed over this part. It was his most practiced, and he was also just more comfortable with fast songs than he was with slow. He felt fast songs were more forgiving, but with long notes he had to be as equally steady as he was precise.

It took only a few minutes for them to reach the first 'final gasp'. A series of short, almost staccato notes punctuated by a drawn out bowing. He stopped using the E string entirely, and as teh notes got progressively lower, so did the song get slower. He wasn't entirely proficient in his use of the chords his family so often used in the song, but he tried to fit them in where he remembered. He wished he had practiced more before he had left, and the thought was enough to bring tears to his eyes. Perhaps any viewer would simply attribute it to an emotional playing, and Knife was certainly an emotional violinist, but he was not one to cry over a song.

Some families, he had heard, had a tradition of allowing their children to travel with the intent of returning to the caravan, the troupe, after learning about the world. Knife was not so lucky, and his decision to leave had likely irrevocably damaged the relationship he had with his family. He was still unsure what had possessed him to do something like that, but he also knew that they had such incorrigible differences that it was difficult to even consider sticking with the troupe for the rest of his life.

His song began to transition to a slow song, with short bursts of fast, high notes. Summer's last gasp — gusts of autumn wind — a dead leaf blowing across a well-worn path. He wasn't much of a singer, but he hoped that the pieces could be put together regardless.

And finally, the song drew to a close. Knife bowed, but he paid little attention to whatever, if any, crowd had gathered, and turned to speak to Finn instead. "What about you, then? Do you have any songs from your village-where-most-people-don't-have-surnames?"

[Finn]

Finn had a good ear for music, which served him well. He seemed to remember things that the fae'ethalan did not: chord progression and the like. But it was easier for him to strum chords and leave the melody to the piercing cry of the violin. And while he didn't know the words, even phonetically, to this piece, he remembered parts where fae'ethalan voices had soared and so he just sang those parts on open vowels, or closed ones where there ought to have been another violin, perhaps. From time to time he would shape the sounds with consonants that gave those natural elemental characters that the song seemed to be going for.

At least, Knife didn't seem to mind his freestyling.

As always, he tended to add a little percussion, hand slapping on the body of his lute, the thump of his heel against stone, or even the odd bit where the lute fell out and he added snaps and claps to stand out. Such things were sometimes frowned upon at the Academy, but generally enjoyed when he was busking. Different music for different venues and different audiences. He didn't mind, really. Things that other artists railed against—constraints upon their creativity—were just things he worked around or worked with, like a stream moving through rocks and spawning rapids.

He was exhilarated by the end of things, the challenge of remembering bits to fill in what the fae'ethalan himself didn't supply, listening to him play and improvising in kind, it was all fun for him and so it hardly felt like work.

He grinned.

"My village, eh? I wasn't good enough to run away with the fae'ethalan?" But he winked and laughed and began to play a folksy tune that he had always loved. Either Knife would find a way to improvise accompaniment, or he could just listen and they would figure something else out.

We speak in the store
I'm a sensitive bore
You seem markedly more
And I'm oozing surprise

But it's late in the day
And you're well on your way
What was golden went gray
And I'm suddenly shy

And the gathering floozies
Afford to be choosy
And all sneezing darkly
In the dimming divide

And I have read the right book
To interpret your look
You were knocking me down
With the palm of your eye

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!

His voice affected an almost reedy timbre, and the music was simple and predictable in some ways as folk songs often were, though there was also a complexity to it, whether developed by Finn himself or latent in the music.

This is unlike the story
It was written to be
I was riding its back
When it used to ride me

And we were galloping manic
To the mouth of the source
We were swallowing panic
In the face of its force

And I am blue
I am blue and unwell
Made me bolt like a horse

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!

Now it's done
Watch it go
You've changed so
Water runs from the snow

Am I so dear?
Do I run rare?
You've changed so

Peach, plum, pear
Peach, plum...

The lyrics ended unresolved, and the final fingering of the lute could go on forever, but he gradually let it fade away. He turned a smile upon Knife, hoping he had enjoyed it.

[Knife]

Knife was not entirely skilled in improvised accompaniment, and he felt that the violin might be both too loud and too distracting for the voice-and-lute combination, and so he simply listened as Finn sang. His family had generally travelled all over Karnor, and while he couldn't place the village where he was from on a map, he could feel the way Kalzasi had influenced his music.

The lyrics were pleasant, too, and he closed his eyes while he listened, an attempt to commit them and the melody to memory. Even as the song faded away with the breeze, he did not open his eyes, though he still addressed Finn.

"You'll have to teach me that song, my friend. I'm not much of a singer, but..." He paused and chuckled as punctuation. "Do you play here often? I don't know if I've seen you, but maybe I just haven't looked very well."

Finally he opened his eyes, their red-orange just as reminiscent of the coming season as the rest of him. His massive moth wings, though folded flat behind him, shifted in both the breeze and with his enthusiasm. "I would not be against giving Valasren lessons in exchange for learning more songs with you."

Even with the offer, Knife knew it wasn't particularly necessary — Finn seemed he would be happy enough to collaborate, at least from his first impressions, but he was also eager to share his language with someone who seemed interested in it. And the man had learned the sounds and songs without their meanings, so it wouldn't be as difficult as teaching someone from scratch. It was likely he would like to understand the Fae'ethalan songs he knew, anyway. "Which songs do you know, anyway? Do you know their names in Valasren?"

[Finn]

The human minstrel appreciated Knife's response even if it wasn't applause. The fairy elf had closed his eyes and really listened, and when one sang their heart out on a daily basis, it was a nice change to have someone actually, truly listen. Those eyes were startling when they opened, though not unpleasantly so. The fae'ethalan were exotic no matter where they went, it seemed.

"Oh, I have my usual haunts," he said. "Most often at the Crown and Lion in the Low-City these days. I've been taking classes at the Academy for a couple of seasons, trying to learn more about the world, hoping to add more depth and breadth to my work. But I live at the inn, so they always enjoy me playing in the taproom, and it feels a bit like home at this point. But as for this particular spot..." He looked around. "It isn't my first time here, but I do like to wander, see where the energy feels right when I want to busk."

Blue eyes brightened when it seemed Knife might actually be willing to teach him some of his mother tongue. At the question, he listed off about three song titles. He had a vague idea of what he was saying, but while his pronunciation was good, it was clear that he didn't quite grasp the complexity inherent in the simple string of melodic syllables. But a language teacher would probably recognize that as a very good start.

"I learned those from a woman from the Court of Spring, so I don't know if the fae'ethalan songs are shared among the courts or if they all have more of their own repertories..." His hand spread, apologetic for his ignorance, but at least he was keen to learn.

[Finn]

They played for a while.

Knife helped him understand the lyrics of some of what he was singing, which allowed him to translate and adapt those lyrics into something that would fit the meter in Common. It was a special sort of skill akin to composition, and he enjoyed the challenge, though it was much more enjoyable for having a native speaker there to laugh at him if his translation didn't make sense because of some context or connotation from the original language, of which he knew very little.

Perhaps, if Knife stuck around, he might introduce him to other fae'ethalan and it would be easier to pick up Valasren now that Finn was interested in linguistics. The Academy was a siren, singing about new avenues of study that excited his mind.

They played until it started to get dark and Finn's stomach began to growl. He invited the violinist to grab a bite to eat and a drink, but the man had plans already, and so they parted ways. Knife, at least, knew where to find Finn if he wanted to play duets again. In any case, it had Finn considering violins in the composition he was working on for Shinsei Talon.

It had to be done in Ash, but he tried not to feel the pressure.

No pressure; just a paean to the prince who was apparently also a demigod now.

No pressure.

fin.