Sad Songs and Waltzes [Torin]

[Finn]

32 Searing 121
The Commons

The sun was out as the city bustled with its noontide business. Like a living thing in itself, the pace slowed for the heat, though the worst of it was yet to come. Finn had found a spot that was shaded despite the sun still being near its zenith, water from the fountain plashing enough to cool the breezes but not drown out his song. It was a fine summer day, and since Lyra had no need of him at her shop, he was using the time to busk lest he grow too accustomed to the academic side of his craft than the connection with real people, artist and audience.

People came and went, but he hadn't drawn a crowd yet. Sometimes that was just the way of things, but since he had no particular person to play for, he just thought about what he wanted to play in that moment. It was a sad song, and spoke of a different season, but while it spoke of sadnesses he hadn't known, it had always given him a sort of empathetic response, finding resonances of his own feelings and experiences with whoever had written the thing. He wished he could claim it as his own — it was more in the style of a small village like the one he had grown up in.

"Sadie," he whined plaintively, not knowing who she was, but having his own idea. It began to pour through the music as he poured his aether through his rune, weaving melodies of his own feelings of loss, regret, and loneliness into it.

"White coat
You carry me home
You carry me home
And bury this bone
And take this pinecone
Bury this bone
To gnaw on it later, gnawing on the damnèd bone
Until then, we pray and suspend
The notion that these lives do never end
And all day long we talk about mercy
Lead me to water, Lord, I sure am thirsty
Down in the ditch where I nearly served you
Up in the clouds where He almost heard you
And all that we built
And all that we breathed
And all that we spilt
Or pulled up like weeds
Is piled up in back
And it burns irrevocably
We spoke up in turns
'Til the silence crept over me."

He imagined his feelings riding the song out and into the ears of passersby, not sure who would latch onto it or who would continue walking past him, perhaps remembering later. Perhaps not. Feelings could be fleeting and memories difficult to pin down. His fingers made the marriage of plucked harmonies and strummed chords seem simple and easy. The music should seem simple and easy, leaving the mind more energy to cope with the thoughts and emotions it evoked.

[Torin Kilvin]

The Commons were as hot as anywhere else in the city, but there was something charming about them that, to Torin, was lacking in the richer parts of Kalzasi. He was wearing his new summer coat, though it was open at the front and flapped about his calves in the Searing breezes. Under it, he wore shirt (unlaced at the neck), trousers, and half-boots.

He'd been wandering for a little while, ostensibly looking for a place he might plant the roots of his new life as an independent craftsman, but truly more just exploring the city for its own sake. If he found something he loved he would inquire about it, of course, but he doubted he was going to find something that fit what was in his head. He would have to build it himself, with the help of his small, but growing circle of those he cared about.

At an intersection, he looked both ways, unsure of which way would take him back to the main thoroughfare. The strains of music came to him on the wind, just fragments but they sounded familiar. Smiling he followed them until the side street opened up into a wide square with a large fountain in the middle. The breeze picked up tiny droplets from the fountain and threw them over him in a refreshing burst as he came around the corner and saw the source of the music.

The musician was a young man, but older than Torin, playing a lute and singing. The song was a folk piece he had heard often enough in his childhood to know the words. Sitting on the edge of the fountain he leaned back on his palms, closed his eyes, and listened for a little while. The feeling of home, Ash evenings around fires when everyone was cider tipsy after a long day of harvesting. Voices raising together as hands had worked together.

Caught in the memories he raised his own voice to meet the one he heard without thinking about it,

And bless you
And I deeply do
No longer resolute
Oh, and I call to you

But the water got so cold
And you do lose
What you don't hold

Opening his eyes and remembering where he was he met the performer's eyes. He hadn't meant to offend and he certainly didn't mean to attempt to steal any of the busker's patrons.

[Finn]

"And bless you
And I deeply do
No longer resolute
Oh, and I call to you

But the water got so cold
And you do lose
What you don't hold."

Halfway through that first stanza, he became aware that he had an interactive audience. He focused on the young man's symphony, noticing immediately that he had a good, if untrained, voice. In the second stanza, Finn flipped into a harmony, letting the stranger take the melody for himself. The lute supported him, and Finn's voice went high and purposefully reedy as his grandmother's had been when she sang some song from her girlhood.

When the man's eyes opened and met Finn's, he smiled and a courageous melody into his symphony, encouraging him to keep singing if he knew the lyrics. Performing was often transformational for the minstrel, but he wasn't so greedy for the limelight that he couldn't step aside to invite someone else into the act of creation.

"This is an old song
These are old blues
And this is not my tune
But it's mine to use
And the seabirds
Where the fear once grew
Will flock with a fury
And they will bury
What'd come for you

And down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender
You and I, and a love so tender
Stretched on a hoop where I stitch this adage:
'Bless our house and its heart so savage'

And all that I want
And all that I need
And all that I've got
Is scattered like seed
And all that I knew
Is moving away from me

And all that I know
Is blowing like tumbleweed

And the mealy worms
In the brine will burn
In a salty pyre
Among the fauns and ferns

And the love we hold
And the love we spurn
Will never grow cold
Only taciturn

And I'll tell you tomorrow
Oh Sadie, go on home now
And bless those who've sickened below
And bless us who have chosen so

And all that I've got
And all that I need
I tie in a knot
And I lay at your feet
And I have not forgot
But a silence crept over me

So dig up your bone
Exhume your pinecone, Sadie."

There was a smattering of applause as he plucked out the painfully sweet ending and several coins clinked into the open lute case by his side. He bowed, but only let a few moments of silence pass before he played a quiet reprise, slowly ambling away from that song as his fingers figured out what they wanted to play next.

His smile turned back toward the stranger with the voice, and he acknowledged him with a little half-bow.

"I've never met any city folk who know that old song," he admitted. "Just found myself missing my old Nan." His smile didn't turn toward sadness, merely a touch nostalgic. She would have been proud of him following his passion in the city, though. She had certainly believed in following the beat of one's own drum. His aether was still tangled up in the stranger's, and he let it settle there, not digging deeply for secrets, but knowing he had to practice so the magic would be under his control rather than he under the magic's control.

We are the Leh'anafel, he thought to himself. We are the dreamers of dreams.

[Torin Kilvin]

When the musician switched to a harmony Torin stopped worrying about offending him, letting himself lean back on his hands and sing the song from home. The pair sang it all the way through, sweet and sad, the lute making its own third voice, though sometimes it sounded like a fourth or even fifth as well. The music swelled around them creating something all its own, something old and new, borrowed and improvised, and blue. A comfortable sadness that didn't actually make the blond sad, only pleasantly whistful. It was the first time he'd been able to think about anything from back home that didn't make him the bad sort of sad.

It drew to a close and he looked back up at the man who had gifted him the moment as they finished together, meeting on the notes of the ending, Sadie.

Taking a deep breath he heaved himself to his feet and stretched, bashful but not painfully so at the little bit of applause that followed. He knew it was for the lutist much more than himself but he also wasn't sure if he should clap himself. The music started again and he found himself facing the man who had allowed Torin to share his song without the connection of the words between them.

A shy smile was his answer to the little bow, his weight coming to rest on his backfoot showing he was a little embarrassed but really pleased.

"I'm not a city boy," He admitted easily, mentioning the name of his village. "Grew up there, only came to Kalzasi last Ash. It's an old song where I come from too." He referenced the song lyric and tried not to let himself feel too pleased for his tiny cleverness. He was all open inside, surprisingly relaxed.

The busker's accent sounded closer to home than anyone he'd met in the city so far too, perhaps they might have been friends growing up if the world had been a little different. Taking he closer look he realized there was more of a difference in their ages than he'd at first thought, there was a youthfulness about the other man but he was assuredly some years older than Torin.

Walking the few steps between them he pulled a handful of silver, about a gold's worth, and dropped it into the open lute case. "Thank you for singing that, there can't be much call for it here.

[Finn]

"Oh, I—" But the man had dropped a shower of silver into his lute case before he could stop him. With an awkward smile, he said, "I was about to offer you some of the takings. But thank you. 'Tis nice to see another man of the far off hamlets making his way in the city." His voice rang with sincerity and it was sincere. The magic just augmented that, coiling about the other man to lubricate conversation. Finn was content to play underscoring for a bit of conversation, especially after the compliment of a man feeling compelled to join in. If the man had a baby face, the minstrel didn't seem to have any problem speaking to him as an equal.

"Thank you for joining in," he replied to the thanks. "Generally when that happens, it's at a pub and the other person is so soused they couldn't hold pitch with both hands." He laughed, though he wasn't hateful in his assessment of his intoxicated fans. "What brought you to the city, then? Come to join the guard or..." He laughed again, this time twinkling with self-deprecation. "Perhaps a blacksmith? My mother's a blacksmith back in one of those hamlets on the Lake. If I had your shoulders, she never would have let me run away to the city to sing songs for my supper."

The high plink-plink-plink of his strings over the lower chords almost conjured the idea of listening to a smith at work from outside her forge. The city was full of sounds competing with each other to be heard, though. It had its own chaotic music—though only chaotic if one didn't have the perspective to see it as a whole, the way he imagined the Avialae overseers did from on high. He might never know. Though he had once ridden an Avialae into battle, it had been down into the depths of the Warrens rather than up around Mount Synnar.

[Torin Kilvin]

"It is nice, almost like seeing a face from home. Or, hearing a voice, anyway."

Torin tried to be easy in conversation with anyone and generally succeeded so long as it was simple talk of things he understood, but it was rare he himself felt this comfortable in it. Perhaps it was the accent. Even if most of the people he'd grown up with weren't ones he'd be interested in seeing again the voices he had loved most before coming to the city had also held the regional dialect of the villages surrounding Kalzasi. It made sense he would feel at his ease with the lutist.

He laughed openly, voice warmed from the song making the sound deeper than usual, a foretelling of how he might sound in a few years when his chest settled into its full growth. "I've joined in to a good many tavern songs, sometimes with more in me than made for carrying a tune." It might have been true. He tried not to drink more than he could handle and remain capable but there had been nights when the barman or maids had kept his mug full without him noticing until he'd been dizzy with drink.

The blond lit up a little more, like peeling back the layers of an onion and finding a tiny sun in its folds,

"I am a blacksmith, actually. I came to the city to finish my apprenticeship. Well, a runesmith for true, but I know both forges well." The latter sentence was spoken a little quieter than the first. He wasn't sure why but he got the feeling common people would like him less if they knew he was what noble folk referred to as a Worldmage. He'd never quite liked the title, it felt incorrect to associate the lofty-sounding word with himself, topless and sweating, covered in soot and dust.

"I'm not sure if the gods made me for the hammer and anvil or the hammer and anvil made me for themselves. I was a tiny child. My master knew near to every good blacksmith in fifty miles of our village, perhaps he knew your mother." Craftspeople who shared the same trade were often known to each other across the little communities, sometimes pulling together for big projects. "I'm glad you turned out as you are, you seem suited to your current craft. Maybe if I'd been apprenticed to your mother I'd have learned music before my body caught up to my craft and run off with you."

[Finn]

"Ahh," he acknowledged. A nod of respect followed the revelation that the young blacksmith was also a runeforger. "Like our Shinsei." Whether on purpose or not, his words shifted back toward his village dialect. It had a music distinct from the polished sophistication of the city, but Finn had an ear for music and could clearly code-shift.

"I suppose her forge would be disappointing for you, though," he said with an amiable shrug as he continued to play his siren song. "Her community only needs tools and the occasional weapon in case of highwaymen. She mends more pots than helmets, though. Always will. But 'tis a solid employment. It kept us all fed and housed and left my father free to tend to hearth and home. And children. Three of them."

He smiled slightly, imagining the rhythm of his mother's hammer, steady as any clockwork metronome.

"Do you have any requests, Sir Smith?"

Finn gave a comically overblown bow without losing the stream of music coming out of his instrument. It didn't hurt having a handsome man obviously enjoying his music, and as an added benefit, he was nice to talk to. Sometimes it could feel disheartening when one was playing and nobody paid one any mind.

Of course, getting paid to pluck out some background music wasn't a terrible gig, either, but when busking he tended to play what he felt like playing, while also trying to keep in mind what the audience might enjoy in that place and time. It seemed as though his music alone had made the man smile, the magic only encouraging what he was already feeling. That was more Finn's style than attempting to overwhelm a person or an audience with exactly what he wanted. Therein the path to corruption, he figured.

[Torin Kilvin]

The reference to the prince confused Torin. He had heard that the heir was a runesmith, it stood to reason he was a blacksmith, though Torin had sort of imagined the man had others to do the lesser work for him. The deprecating reference to a village forged brought him back to the conversation,

"It was the same with my master, the man I was apprenticed to since I was little. Not much call for magic work, though he had a good reputation and when the merchants came down the main road every year he would do fair well with runeforged weapons and such. Most of the year we mended pots, shoed horses, made shovels, plows, and axels." His hands flexed of their own accord, sense memories of the work flowing through him.

"It's a good life, steady, useful, I would be proud to have kept at it all my life, but he, my master, said I had to come to the city." The man had said Torin had too much talent to waste in the wilds, but the blond wasn't going to repeat that aloud.

He grinned at the theatrics, finding the conversation with this man, at once seeming like someone he almost knew and the type of person he'd never had cause to converse with before quite pleasant, almost soothing.

"Oh, uhm," He searched his mind for something he'd like to hear. The talk of his profession, mixed with the idea of a song and the memories of home,

"Do you know If I Had A Hammer?" Popped out of him, a blush followed on its tail. It was also an old country song, the type city folk might call 'colloquial' if they were trying not to offend. It was often sung by workmen as they sawed a log, harvested, or did other work that required a shared rhythm. Torin and his master had often hummed or sang it together to keep their times together as they worked over the same anvil. Making a placating gesture and ducking his head shyly, though his smile did not flee him he said,

"You don't have to. All the talk of home just made me think of it."

[Finn]

Finn didn't answer in words, but instead managed to deftly shift through a few chords until the music naturally came onto the correct one and without playing the melody, someone listening for it would hear the structural support for it in what he was playing. An eyebrow rose in friendly challenge and his mesmerous aether gave Torin a nudge of bravery. It was unlikely the apprentice had many opportunities to sing in public with a professional accompanying him, and Finn would certainly harmonize with him in such a way as to make him sound better. There were times to show off and then there were times where the artist's ego was unimportant, at least in his estimation.

It took some skill to make the song recognizable without playing the melody, but Finn just smiled at the blacksmith.

"Now's your chance. Sing! I'll harmonize with you so you don't have to be nervous singing alone."

But this time, he would let the music feature the blond. There would be time enough for Finn to take center stage. It was, after all, his career. His fingers continued their dance, vamping until such time as the man jumped in with lyrics, teasing with bits of the melody until a human voice claimed it.

In case the man didn't have the ear to know when to jump in, Finn began to hum the melody over the strum and pluck of the strings, but he wasn't going to start singing until the man launched it with his own voice. As much as Finn loved writing songs from his own mind and heart and performing alone, a channel from his experience to an audience's ears, there was something in making music with someone else that was unattainable alone. He didn't even worry about whether it would be good; it would be a conversation.

[Torin Kilvin]

The way the song was being played confused the younger man, at first. He thought it might be the difference between their villages. There had been several times he'd asked for a certain song and gotten it played back to him recognizably but differently to how he'd grown up hearing it. When he realized what the busker was trying to get him to do he flushed but didn't turn away. Singing in public was something he enjoyed, though it had typically been as part of a crowd of singers before that.

If the man thought well enough of his voice that he didn't think Torin would scare away his custom, it seemed only fair to go along with his own request. He let the opening cycle back to it's start, filled his wide lungs and lifted the simple song into the space between them.

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land

It was a song of work, a song of protection and will, of connection and community. Only in work had he ever really felt that sense of community, or when there was danger. As poorly as he might have been treated or ignored by the people of his village there was always a sense that any outside force would be rebuffed by all of them. His baritone grew stronger as he went on and no one seemed offended, a few people even stopped to watch for a few moments, or clapped along. Perhaps it was a better known song than he'd thought, or perhaps its simplicist made it easy to join into the spirit of it. There was no chorus, the whole thing was sort of a chorus, a repeating pattern with easy to follow changes.

If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land

Good as his word the musician's own clear voice rose to join his on the second verse and Torin couldn't help grinning about it. It felt so freeing to give himself to the song. It felt like they were sharing something.