Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Finn)

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
85 Frost, 121

It would be a watershed week for the realms of Karnor, and Brenner Dornkirk was to catalyse the paradigm shift. The pressure upon him was immense, but the Air Commander was no stranger to pressure. In fact, he thrived amidst hardship. The Warrens had been proof of that, as had the affliction he recently overcame. Neither had killed him, and both had left him stronger. He was better positioned in the political arena of his Fatherland, and physically he was more robust than he'd ever felt. From tomorrow on, his focus would be entirely upon the work. He would need to practise his form to make certain he landed the all important strike that would forever alter the course of human history on Ransera. The first shot in the final war against magic itself.

As for today, Brenner would seek out solace amongst the wretched of Kalzasi. The oppressed majority. He assumed he would find the most likeminded individuals in the Low City. If it was named aptly, he anticipated legions of malcontents enduring the hardships of life under the pidge hoi aristoi. It seemed fitting that he should get to know some of those he sought to help. Ideally, some of them would recognise the good intentions of their neighbours and join the cause of their own liberation.

Brenner's uniform was clean and crisp- Not one of the fine dress uniforms he wore to official functions. This was the sort he wore day-to-day serving on the Searing Victory. But still, it bore that particular masculine elegance inherent to Zaichaeri fashion. He made his way into the pub, scanning the faces of the crowd as he sidled up to the bar and ordered an ale.

Much of the attention in the room seemed to be fixed upon a minstrel situated toward the back singing and accompanying himself on a lute. He was a strapping, handsome lad- rather a paragon of humanity. There was a boy who'd have filled out a uniform nicely. Were he Zaichaeri, he might have been a poster boy for recruitment into the military. He collected his stein of ale and made his way to a table that gave him a front row vantage of the strapping singer.

[Finn]

Reactions to a Zaichaeri officer were mixed, from surprise to suspicion, but when the proprietor poured him an ale, everyone relaxed a bit, at least enough to prevent any sort of altercation. There were some who were more curious than anything. The Crown and Lion was clean and tidy, if old and worn. The Low-City wasn't all slums; some people were merely blue collar workers of modest means. They didn't tend to see much of the foreigners, nor much of their liege lords. In fact, for several years, the songs of that selfsame minstrel were often the greatest cultural education in their lives.

Finn didn't see the stranger come in. It had been a little over the month since he had moved out and moved up into a nicer neighborhood. He hadn't told anyone how nice, of course, embarrassed by his success. They were just glad he had met a nice boy and was making a home for himself, and glad that he still came back from time to time to play for them. With this crowd, he could let himself go a bit, so his eyes were closed as he focused on working out this new song of his. His "new" lute was old and battered, but he had fixed it up into something playable. Its case rested against the wall nearby, along with the sword he carried with him everywhere now.

His hand hadn't begun to ache yet, and for that he was grateful.

"I feel my feet leave the ground
And I'm losing, I'm losing control
It's buried deep, a state of mind
But I won't coward out of this fight
I want to burn it down, watch it fall apart
Been looking for a cure for a callous heart
I want to burn it down, watch it fall apart
And when I see the walls come crashing down
I'll be satisfied

Brick by brick by brick by brick
The wall's coming down, the wall's coming down."

His gift reached out to caress the symphonies of his audience, not seeking to rewrite their music, but to express the things he could only articulate musically, the things he was struggling with himself. His recovery continued, but it wasn't complete. There was polite applause from his audience; they didn't always "get" his work, but they liked him and he had broadened their horizons a bit over the years. He also toned some things down when performing here. The song would likely sound different in a more experimental forum, or he just wouldn't share it because it was too personal.

Finn smiled as his eyes opened. His smile froze for a breath as his breath hitched at the sight of a Zaichaeri officer. It just took a moment for him to school himself back toward calm, patterning a mantra of a melody over his own symphony. Using Mesmer on himself sometimes had strange side effects, but it could still be effective in the moment. He needed it at this moment.

"Thank you," he said humbly as if he were everyone's son or grandson, brother or cousin. His family was off in the village, but these people had sort of filled in that sense of village for him. He set his lute down beside his blade and went up to the bar for a pint of his own and a bit of a break.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Now that he was closer and giving his undivided attention to the young man, Brenner found himself struck by his talent. It seemed rather ill-suited to the environs. He might have been distracted by the incongruity of such polished artfulness in such a humble arena, but he was too engaged with the music to fall into that internal tangent. It seemed he finished before he began, but the conclusion of the minstrel's set coincided with the completion of Brenner's ale.

They made eye contact for a moment, but the boy brushed past his table moments later before the Air Commander had a chance to address him directly. Taking up his empty tankard, he rose and wove through the wake the minstrel left in his adoring crowd en route to the bar. He drew up in time to hear the young man place an order, so he was able to call over the man's shoulder.

"And another for me. Both on my tab." He sidled up and placed a friendly left hand upon the broad back of the minstrel as he extended the right in greeting.

"Good evening. I just have to tell you, that was truly captivating. I just popped in for a drink- I never dreamed I'd be treated to such a sterling performance. Well done, you." He cleared his throat and glanced to the barkeep as he brought the minstrel's drink and went back to the tap to pour Brenner's.

"My name is Brenner." He offered, "I'm just at a table up by the stage, if you'd care to join me during your break, or... Are you done for the evening?" He knitted his brow, as if the latter option would have been a grave disappointment.

[Finn]

His muscles tensed under the unknown hand; he couldn't help it, though he managed to relax and, by the time he turned to face the Zaichaeri officer, he had relaxed into a rueful sort of smile. Not all Zaichaeri could be evil; not all Zaichaeri were Reconciliators; he had no proof the Reconciliators were behind the attack on his person. He didn't quite believe it, but he found himself better able to relax, to compartmentalize, while he was playing minstrel rather than just being Finn. That wasn't to say that he wasn't genuinely himself when he was performing, but rather that he was a more comfortable and confident version of himself when he was providing the music.

And his internal litany didn't stop him from opening up his senses to the man's symphony to ensure he meant no harm, and opening his senses to all the pathways through the slipspace that would take him away, whether a blink out of arm's reach or a vault to the safety of his home. It calmed him down somewhat to have a warning system and an escape route, and he reminded himself that these people loved him and wouldn't stand for anything happening to him. They were good people and they protected their own; that included Finn, even if he had moved up in the world.

"Thank you, Brenner," he said sincerely, shaking the man's hand with his good, strong right. "I'm Finn. I used to live upstairs, so it's nice to come back and play for them even now I've studied at the Academy." He almost said the Pyrecaeon, but didn't know if mentioning Gods or institutions named after them would offend a Zaichaeri citizen. "Ahh, that all depends on the demands of my audience, but I could certainly sit with you for a while, at least."

The man's symphony sounded hopeful at first listen, and Finn didn't mind a little tête-à-tête if it kept him happy. He seemed amiable and was certainly handsome. The Brass City probably sent their best on diplomatic envoys.

Finn straightened and indicated the temporarily vacated table. "After you?"

Even village boys had manners.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner just shook his head in response to Finn's expression of gratitude, as if buying the drink had been entirely perfunctory. It might have appeared rudely dismissive, but the minstrel's arcane augmentation clarified what Brenner's somewhat sour expression might have suggested. His symphony simply intoned: "No worries".

"Splendid." His expression brightened and he nodded, stepping ahead of Finn and returning to the table toward which he'd gestured. He glanced over his shoulder and pulled out a chair for the minstrel and offered a genteel nod as he waited for the handsome man to be seated. His symphony sang of intrigue, attraction and shame. There was an undercurrent of some sort of scheming, but it was ambiguous as Brenner himself was winging it and still figuring out an angle for the exchange to come.

"So." Some of the fog began to clear, "You must be intimately familiar with this community." The Air Commander noted, placing a gentle squeeze to Finn's shoulder, before making his way around to the other side of the table to claim a seat there. "You've lived here and... Well, I know that artists like yourself have an ear to the ground. Intimate knowledge of the Human experience is all part of the work for your lot. As it happens, my goal in visiting this neighbourhood was to learn more about its inhabitants. I come from a working class background myself..." The Air Commander hyperbolised, "But in my current position, it is usually the elites who bend my ear. It occurred to me that I knew nothing of how the other half of Kalzasi lived in the shadow of the Avialae's ivory towers..." He took a sip of his ale and ran his tongue languidly about his lips.

"I don't suppose you'd be able to enlighten me at all...?" The little smirk Brenner wore might have come across a little flirtatious if Finn wasn't listening to his Symphony. If he was, however, it would come off extremely flirtatious.

[Finn]

Finn wasn't certain how he had offended or disappointed, but Brenner's symphony moved on and so whatever it was, Finn attributed to his initial reaction. He followed the man to his table, able to relax a bit more with the Zaichaeri's back to him. He decided to keep his Rune running, the better to keep ahead in the conversation and turn it should the need arise. If worse came to worst, he could just escape with his other one, but again, that seemed rationally unlikely given the locale.

"Thank you," he said, a little surprised to be treated so well by one so well-dressed. He sat and paid careful attention to the man, both to what he said and to what his souls sang to underscore it. The words made sense, though they didn't align exactly with what he felt. There was truth, though a minstrel knew how the truth could be wielded creatively. And then he couldn't help but remember a conversation he had had with Arry about people in power pushing for things they had agreed to keep between them.

But there was a tremulousness to the music that made the confident smiles seem fragile. His initial reaction to a Zaichaeri was a feeling of powerlessness, but something shifted within him. It was quite possible that he held the potential power here. It was a strange sort of realization, and it gave him a sort of flush of pleasure that he didn't know how to process.

Testing his theory, he smiled, leaned toward Brenner, and held up his glass to toast.

"To enlightenment and the human experience," he said. "Or... prost?"

He didn't actually speak Kathalan, but he could sing it and so its pronunciation wasn't off. It just sounded like he wanted to sing it.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner's reaction to the second expression of gratitude played along similar lines to the first. He merely wrinkled his nose and shook his head in a manner that looked disapproving, but his symphony sang that he was trying to look cavalier because he thought it would make him seem more impressive. There were fortissimo notes of vanity exuding from the man and he seemed particularly keen to impress the minstrel, with little regard for the simple folk in whom he claimed to be interested.

"Ach!" Brenner grinned, lifting his tankard of ale more enthusiastically for the use of his mothertongue. "Sprichst du auch Kathalisch? Meine Mutter kommt aus dem gelärischen Kaiserreich." (Do you also speak Kathalan? My mother hails from the Gelerian Imperium.)

"Prost!" He echoed with a punctuating clink of glass against glass, and a hearty gulp of ale to follow it up. "So..." The tankard thudded against the table as he slammed it down, and lifted his blue eyes to meet the similarly hued gaze of the minstrel Finn. The youth had toasted the spirit of his question, but markedly had yet to answer it. An interesting feint, but Brenner pressed the matter.

"Would you be able to elaborate a bit, whether in Common oder auf Kathalisch, about the plights and pleasures of the proletariat in Kalzasi?" A supercilious sneer painted his fair features, as he was clearly proud of his purple prose and the alliteration employed therein. Perhaps he was particularly pleased with himself knowing he was in the presence of an artist and that artful rhetoric might be a tool toward the effort of impressing him. His symphony still sang of superficial concerns and a desire for approval that was highlighted by the strangeness of the surroundings to the Air Commander. Part of him felt out to sea in this foreign- even alien- realm and there was something of Finn that felt familiar and safer, because he too looked as though he would have been perfectly at-home in the High City.

[Finn]

The man's reactions were strange, or perhaps Finn just wasn't used to paying such keen attention to someone's symphony while conversing with them for the first time. It went against his upbringing not to be polite and show gratitude, but he would try to mitigate that if it made the man uncomfortable. For himself, he could appreciate fine words and even craft them with some bravura, but sometimes he reverted back to plain and honest speaking. Tonight was going to be a strange mixture of the two. His open face expressed a bit of consternation, but he kept smiling.

"Ahh..." There had been enough cognates and he knew enough from the songs in his repertory to get the gist of what the man was saying. "I hate to disappoint, but I have mostly learned how to pronounce Kathalan correctly, not necessarily to converse. There are few opportunities here, though I suppose I could put some time and effort into it if you're going to be a frequent visitor." He plied melodies of honest admiration, so the man might think it for his benefit, while he enjoyed learning new tongues already. "Soon enough I'll be fluent in Vallenor and need a new linguistical challenge."

After their toast and their first drink, he set his tankard down.

"Well, we sit upon an opening into the Warrens, which always poses dangers. From what I understand, you have a similar danger in Zaichaer? The Dead Legion and the other armed forces do a decent job of keeping us safe, though..." He nodded toward his lute and his sword. "I keep my steel with me just in case. I've been down there and seen enough to know some of what's down there. I'm sure there are common problems for common people everywhere. I know there's some politicking going on between the Great Houses Novalys and Senue, but after thirteen Novalys Shokazes, I don't know if it will amount to much, and I don't know how much which Avialae House rules would affect us. There's... well, those lacking citizenship have some restrictions, and there are some restrictions to businesses without noble patronage. 'Twould be fairer if other races held more power, but I suppose the original Orkhan forged this deal with the Avialae in the dim past..." He shrugged.

"I needed patronage for Great House Zatrian in order to attend the Academy, but that was for financial reasons as much as anything. I grew up in a village on Lake Udori so I had to have the skill and talent to make up for the lack of gold and connections. So upward mobility is possible, but I am one of the fortunate ones. Here in the Low-City, people aren't affluent, but it depends on the neighborhood whether you will meet hard-working blue-collar folks or need to keep an eye on your purse. The truly unfortunate live in the aptly named Midden... underground. That's beyond the real control of the powers that be. They don't expend the resources to keep the peace down there, so from what I understand, it's a might-makes-right, only-the-strongest-survive sort of feel. I don't know that my steel would be enough to keep my skin intact down there, though..." He reached out to caress Brenner's vanity with a trembling melody.

"You look like you could handle yourself."

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"Schade..." (Pity...) Brenner's smile faded, somewhat. The minstrel seemed a bit of a tongue-tease, but he supposed such was to be expected in that line of work. One would be well served to beseem a jack of all trades and a dabbler in all cultures to broaden one's audience appeal.

"For the singing I suppose." He pursed his lips and nodded, "Makes sense." Finn conjured a grin back from Brenner at the suggestion of his learning Kathalan for the Zaichaeri man's sake. It was surely a jest, but a flattering... perhaps even flirtatious one. "Well." His Symphony sang of secrets and they painted his smile into an impish shape. "Whether or not I make a habit of visiting Kalzasi, you may well find Kathalan a useful language to know. Say what you will about the Imperium, but their influence has conquered even more lands than their armies." He blinked at the mention of Vallenor. "Is... that a helpful tongue to know hereabouts?"

The Air Commander settled back in his seat as Finn got round to answering his pointed question. It was a diplomatic explanation and one that offered some deference, understandably, to those who had patronised the youth's artistic ambitions. But there were still critiques laced through the narrative. The armed forces did a 'decent' job, not a thorough one. 'Thirteen Novalys Shokazes' cut holes into the pidge assertion that their realm was ruled by a simple electorate, rather than dynastic blood succession and, of course, most pertinent to Brenner's interests was the observation that it was unfair for Avialae to hold so much sway over other, voiceless races.

"Well." He chuckled and leaned across the table a bit, looking Finn in the eye as he noted: "I'll admit it doesn't seem quite the pristine paradise your prince implied when he visited Zaichaer some months ago." He shrugged. It looked like a mild gesture, but there was an undercurrent of urging beneath it. Brenner was actively trying to manipulate Finn and he knew it- Playacting. "I suppose it is easy to overlook the day-to-day injustices and imbalances from atop the summit of the social hierarchy... Especially when one is born and raised into it. It is a pity merit can only get one so far in certain societies..." He trailed off without explicitly stating how his own culture contrasted from this one.

"The Midden..." He repeated, "Fascinating. I should like to meet such hardy folk." He merely chortled at the compliment. "I might say the same of you." His eyes trailed over the sturdy physique of the minstrel. "You're not a one I'd challenge to an arm-wrestling match, I'll be bound."

[Finn]

Finn laughed at his own expense.

"No, Vallenor remains an obscure language, but I enjoy the challenge and it opens up many histories to mine for musical content."

He could only smile faintly at what was said about Kathalan's utility. War might make for good art, but he rather hoped not to see it in his lifetime. The spaces between cities were dangerous enough; it were better people worked together to survive and thrive rather than tear at each other for dominance. There was something about the man's symphony, complicated, creeping, that made his handsome features sharper, almost sinister. He wanted things—from Finn and from Kalzasi.

The minstrel laughed again and, once again, at his own expense.

"I can manage not to stab myself in the foot with that thing," he said, head jerking slightly toward where his sword leaned against the wall, "but make no mistake—I'm a lover, not a fighter." And if the man was trying to manipulate him, then Finn would just have to do as Arry did when his gift was necessary. He tried to listen to the man's symphony and respond to it, such that his reactions might be all the right ones. Trust me, the aether told this foreign man.

He heard the admiration and nudged it farther. Where Arry had the power to coerce, Finn just found what was extant and fanned the flames in the right direction. It was more delicate work dealing with less power, but he thought that he and his lover were teaching each other a thing or two.