Glimmer [Part II]

[Arvælyn]

"Well, to me you seem full of great ideas." Arvalyn offered, "Your notion to work on an original song, and all the plans you've revealed for how my education might go sound like sterling ideas to me. I'm quite impressed." He smiled, "And I'll admit all this unnecessary humility might be lending to my sense of your niceness." A snigger accompanied that thought.

The Elf frowned that Finn feared niceness might be exploited, not because it was untrue, but because it was. And because this sweet, generous, giving creature probably would- nay, probably already had been abused for his agreeable nature. He tilted his head, regarding Finn silently as the man spoke on, prolix as he was. Perhaps Arvalyn was feeling shades of what Aurin had felt upon meeting a certain, Antiran urchin three years earlier- An urge to protect. Finn wasn't some scrawny, starving teenager... Indeed, he had the patronage of a noble house, and so in many regards he was better protected than Arvalyn even now, but still... The desire to protect was present, and Arry was aware of it even as it brimmed gently below the surface of their discourse.

"Ah, but I'm long since fallen from grace and seeking to find grace elsewhere in life. Ideally, by pretending to be other people and causing large crowds to weep." He pause, and considered what he'd just said and the lack of context he'd applied in the setup thereof. "...On stage, I mean. I'm not out to make people cry in general, just with, you know... The power of my performances and that." He grinned broadly,

"And, now I have you to help me!" He tilted his head, "Even if you refuse to name your price. Should we assign people as our seconds and let them parley on our behalf, as in a duel, or might we settle this between us and remain cordial?"

[Finn]

"In Kalzasi, you can be a new man," he mused. He had come because his little village couldn't support a minstrel of its own; Arvalyn apparently had a backstory that made it equally necessary for him to repair to the city-state.

"Perhaps someday we could write the song of Arvalyn Val'Cithaeron." Finn smiled. "The long, complicated, and tragic tale of how Kalzasi got its brightest star... or something like that." He laughed. But he rubbed his chin thoughtfully and they came to an agreement on payment as well as when they would meet next and where. The minstrel thought the noble elf would feel more comfortable at the Academy anyway. The rehearsal rooms weren't ornate or anything, but they were of high quality, built such that the room itself was soundproof, but also resonated with one's work.

They were, for him, like he imagined the cells of a mystic might be. If he was reverent about anything, it was for places that sang along with the music.

"Well," he continued, "now that that is settled, I suppose we have our business in order for the time being. I'm actually curious to hear the story of Arvalyn Val'Cithaeron, both for artistic reasons and friendly ones, but I wouldn't want to pry and we would need a pot of tea or something warm to drink if we were going to spend some time to get to know one another better. That is if you would like to get to know one another better. I don't have to rush off to work just yet. And you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, obviously, but I am curious."

[Arvælyn]

"Such was ever my goal!" Arvalyn replied, with a knowing nod. "To get far enough away that the past wouldn't catch up with me so I could recreate myself in a preferable image." He smirked, "I suppose I ought to have changed my name." He glanced down to where his hands fidgeted on the table before them. "Oh well."

He liked the sound of a ballad detailing his past... The one he'd created, not the one he'd actually endured. It might serve to spread his legend and legitimise it. The more chaps his tale crossed, the more entrenched it would grow in the public understanding. If he were to reach the level of renown he sought, he would need to build and improve upon the foundations he'd already established. By and large, he avoided the topic entirely, but he did have webs of lies that he'd leaked when the circumstances demanded or the inclination struck.

"Well..." Arvalyn, slid out of his chair, "I'll get the tea, because I have the time and enjoy the company, but... I'm not typically keen to share much of my past with buskers off the street." He smiled and placed a hand on Finn's shoulder, squeezing lightly, as he passed.

"A pot of black tea, and two cups, please." He said, as he approached the hitherto idle barman. He glanced over his shoulder to where Finn awaited him, watching the handsome young man and appraising his profile, until the sound of the pot clunking onto the bartop brought him out of the reverie. He placed down the coin, and took the pot by its handle and the pewter cups by both of theirs.

He returned to their table and placed everything down, pouring for Finn before reclaiming his seat and pouring for himself.

"Is there anything in particular you're curious about?"

[Finn]

For a moment, Finn was unsure whether he had misspoken and upset his new collaborator. Aye to the tea, but nay to the sharing? He pondered that while Arvalyn was away, unaware, it seemed, that he was being watched. Sometimes, Finn was adept at reading people, at figuring out what they wanted and what they needed. Other times, people were a mystery and a half and he had no clue what was going on in their skulls. He was going to have to get better about that. He was going to have to learn to be savvy. The musicians who made it seemed to understand business as well as chord progressions, and how to charm as well as how to modulate. He didn't want to be manipulative, per se, or, if he did, not with malign purposes.

His smile was slightly dazed when Arvalyn returned, taking a moment to return from his own reverie.

"Thank you," he said as the elf poured their tea. It wasn't so stylized as the high service that courtesans performed, at least insofar as he had seen during private parties when he was providing pretty background noise. All the same, Arvalyn had a very conscious grace about him. He was artful and Finn could appreciate that.

"You have beautiful hands," he noticed, then blinked and looked up. That was not the answer to the question asked that had only just registered. "Sorry. Ah, whatever you are comfortable telling me. If we actually do write the song cycle of your life, I'll need to hear it all, over and over. Or, as much as you are ever willing to share. The better to edit and frame, to decide which narrative bits fit together best for the purposes of a song. I'll surely have questions then, and it'll feel like an interview if I do my job well. An interrogation if not." He smiled. "But for now, just whatever you don't mind telling a busker off the street."

[Arvælyn]

"Do I?" Arvalyn's eyes darted to the hand holding the teapot by its handle, as he placed it back down onto the table. Releasing the pot, he drew his hand away and spread the slender fingers regarding them curiously. He wondered at the compliment, as he turned his wrist to inspect the lighter skin of his palm. He curled his digits closed into a fist.

"Well." He shrugged, "I suppose my fingernails are clean, at any rate." That certainly hadn't always been the case, and in the past he'd had a habit of biting them. That trend didn't seem to suit his current persona, and so he'd made the conscious decision to move beyond it.

His gaze rose to Finn's face, as the hand he'd been appraising was put to work lifting his teacup to his lips. He took a slow, deliberate sip as he stalled to consider what elements of his fabrication he ought to lead with.

"I hail from the distant East, deep within in the realms of my people. My family was prominent in our province, and so I was one of those classic prisoners of privilege one hears about in yarns that vex those whose walls are less gilded. I..." Arvalyn paused, suddenly, and glanced down.

"I'm sorry, Finn, I'm just not sure my life has been particularly interesting. I've hardly been the swashbuckling or the chivalric type who usually merit musical depictions. Perhaps there is something more interesting to mine elsewhere, for our collaboration. For the sake of my future fans, I suspect my maintained mystique would better serve me than candour." His bright yellow eyes met Finn's bright blue, and there was a vulnerability projected from the former.

"I think I should like to write a love song."

[Finn]

Finn observed Arvalyn observing his own hands. If his innate emotional intelligence was spotty, he was always trying to learn more by watching people. It was interesting to see what they revealed, especially when they didn't know someone was watching. Of course, Arvalyn knew he had an audience, though perhaps he wasn't quite aware how close attention Finn was paying. In any case, he wasn't a voyeur — he wasn't watching through windows and pulling his cock out. There were peep shows at the Cabaret, though, or so he had heard. He wondered if Arvalyn participated in such exhibitionist activities.

Then he listened, keen to know such an interesting fellow better, both for artistic purposes and just because. What followed seemed a practiced recitation almost. Perhaps it was true; regardless, it was delivered with a storyteller's flair. Then Arvalyn changed tacks, and Finn wondered what his seeming vulnerability meant. He didn't doubt it. Not exactly. He just wasn't sure what it meant. Perhaps someday he would.

"A love song," he mused thoughtfully. After a few moments, he began to nod. "Topical for a courtesan. They will expect artful, of course. But you could teasingly raise the hem of your mystique and offer little flashes of... your truth. Music as striptease." He smiled. "Or would you mine your experiences from before you came to Kalzasi? Or experiences from Kalzasi, changing names, perhaps, to protect the guilty?" He smiled again, gently joking, trying to suss out where Arvalyn's creativity wanted to go without tripping over any of his baggage. Finn didn't know him well enough to know where dangerous lines of inquiry were.

"In any case, I'm sure you will perform it well. After all, we learn to connect emotionally with work we didn't produce ourselves all the time, eh?"

[Arvælyn]

"Does it amuse you?" Arvalyn inquired with an arched eyebrow, "My occupation?" He clarified, before pursing his lips and casting a narrowed golden gaze toward the busker across from him. Finn's rather poetic musings on Arry's notion of a love song seemed to play upon the theme of his work which, while perfectly practical given the context in which the song would be performed, seemed to irk the sunkissed Hytori.

"I wonder..." He began, breaking off the pointed eye-contact, and moving his glare to the table where they found a knot in the wood that seemed to stare back.

"Have you ever enjoyed the services of a courtesan yourself?" His scowl evolved into a smirk. "I know you've occasioned to visit my place of employment plying your own trade, but have you ever partaken of the more... recreative elements of the cabaret, or was it all business for you?" Finn certainly wasn't a regular. There's no way Arry would have missed a face like that in the crowd. But perhaps he'd enjoyed the services of another- maybe at a different venue.

"I mean no offence with my question. I've no doubt you're perfectly capable of pulling without paying, but... Well, sometimes a fellow will ask things of a paid private contractor that they'd be ashamed to request of a partner, or... Some fellows are just more aroused at the notion of paying someone. You'd be surprised how many men covet indifference, or even resistance..." Arry had played out all sorts of scenes with eager clients. Some had made him uncomfortable, whilst others had fed into some of Arry's own predilections.

[Finn]

"I didn't mean anything by it," he promised, a touch crestfallen that he had seemed to touch an unintended nerve. But Arvalyn looked away and then turned the tables, which he supposed was fair play, though he was only trying to draw the elf out to help them brainstorm a bit on the matter of this song they would be writing together.

"Me? Oh, no." He laughed and that too was vaguely apologetic. "I'm not truly a man of means. I mean, I get by. I've never been destitute, thankfully. But any windfall is socked away against future calamity. If I get sick. If there's a dry spell in paid work. And now spending time at the Academy, and that eats up a great deal of the time I would spend earning, and as much as I love it, it demands a great deal of creative energy as well. It's exhilarating, but I find I have to be even more careful to keep my balance. Perhaps someday, though, Academy-trained, a bit renowned, making more gold and less copper..." He smiled wistfully.

His personal dream narrative hinged more upon artistic successes than romantic or sexual ones, but he was a man and those did sneak into his daydreams from time to time, when he had the idle time for daydreaming at all.

"I know painters often find muses in brothels. Perhaps a minstrel will find one in a cabaret!" He laughed, half-dismissing the thought as too far out of reach at the moment. His eyes were on the prize and the affections of a courtesan were corollary to that rather than the star he was sighting. "But your question didn't offend. I've had dalliances, of course, though brief. I think people see me as handsome enough, good for a good time, but not substantive enough for... more, I suppose. I hope that won't make my love songs seem... wrong..."

[Arvælyn]

Arry shook his head, and lifted a hand to execute a dismissive wave.

"I know... I'm just keen to spend more time on the boards and less in the beds." He smiled, "Which is exactly why my own original song could be such a boon, if it's good and if I do it well..." His eyes rose to the ceiling for a moment, as he visualised the fantasy of standing before a packed crowd of rapt listeners. Finn was on stage with him, lute in hand, vocalising harmonies and smiling encouragingly. As the audience leapt to their feet in standing ovation, Arry grabbed Finn's collar and pressed their lips together.

Back in reality, his eyes lowered from the ceiling and focused on Finn's lips as his curiousity about what they would feel like caused the daydream to dissipate. He found that the lips were in motion, and that Finn had been speaking- elaborating upon his life's current course and whither it might someday trend.

At the insinuation that Arry might serve as a muse to Finn, the reluctant courtesan's attention was fully back to the present and he bit his lip to keep his grin from broadening too profusely.

"Then perhaps that is the theme of the song..." The potential muse mused, "Because it is a trait we both share. I'm sure you can imagine I'm not exactly viewed as 'the marrying kind' myself." He knitted his brow, suddenly concerned that Finn might mistake his meaning, and so he quickly elaborated on his own situation.

"It is a fascinating thing, I think... to see men at their most vulnerable telling the sorts of truths that only survive to the very brink of ecstasy and, perhaps, a tender moment beyond... Before they float away with the smoke of the incense we burn to mask the scents of fleeting passions spent." He glanced away,

"I don't think they're lies, really... Passion's promises. They come bursting forth from swollen hearts, before sober minds can stay them." His eyes met Finn's again, "I think there is music to be found in that."

[Finn]

"Passion's Promises," he mused. "That could be a working title for the song."

Finn smiled in earnest. "And, I suppose, if I'm playing accompaniment and, perhaps, harmonizing with you, we might perform part to each other and part to the audience. That sort of theatricality can draw the audience in — give them something visual to accompany the aural." It seemed they were of the same mind about how it might be performed, as well. It didn't bother him when Arvalyn's attention seemed to come and go; he knew how the creative process could go.

And so the hours of the afternoon whiled away as the two young men brainstormed ideas back and forth, feeling out each other and each other's reactions to ideas, thematic, musical, and otherwise. It was wise to take their time, too, as they had only just met and now they were going in on a creative project together. Perhaps it was ill-advised, but it was happening and time would tell whether it was a fortuitous combination of talents.

Smiling, joking, and getting to know what caused smiles and which jokes landed was another part of it. Communication was going to be of ever more importance if they were going to navigate this together. Artists had egos and artists working together had to find a way to get their egos to dance rather than to fight, even though the occasional argument could be helpful.

When they finally parted ways, Finn, at least, was excited by the prospect. It would take time — more time than when he was writing alone. They were both busy and there would be time spent purely working on Arvalyn's voice so not only would he have his own song to sing, but he would be confident in his ability to perform it well enough to impress and help him rise in the estimation of other artists and those who employed them. But for now, Finn thought, they had a good beginning.

.

fin.