Legend of Ransera

Finn made no effort to hide his sincere interest in Qalanar's insights regarding Gods and so-called Lost Magics. He had made all efforts to build bridges with Vrædyn, the only other chosen of Aværys to his knowledge. Of Varvara's, he worked with one and married the other. He hadn't seen much of an esoteric nature to Talon, nor Lykos; he saw a spark of it in Kala Leukos, but she was but newly risen to divinity.

Qalanar spoke to one of the Gods who weren't supposed to speak to mere mortals any longer, more distant and aloof than the demigods. He was a new font of quite select knowledge and Finn hoped he was never so intoxicated he cornered the prince and asked too many questions.

As always, he glanced to Arvælyn, always deferring to him when in discussion with important people. When he didn't immediately respond, Finn did.

"I did suffer from heat stroke once, but I survived. After that, I made friends among the desert nomads and learned how they navigated both the sandy expanses—cartography became a side interest when I became a traveler—and how they navigated the desert heat. My Sentinel blacks are ensorcelled such that that there is no problem so long as I don't refrain from drinking water."

He still wanted to try his luck in the deep desert with a stillsuit, but he was fairly certain Arvælyn would veto such a plan.

"Of course, the Atraxian Expanse had nothing in the crater of Kaladon, where our Gods bade us make obeisance in person." He glanced at Arvælyn. "And his draconic family have been quite welcoming to a mere mortal like me, but they only invite him into the depths of Sorokyn. It would make a good song, I'm certain, but I don't know that I envy him that adventure."

Finn was still seeking a happy equilibrium between wanting to be a part of and partner in every aspect of his husband's life and being an absentee husband as he sometimes wondered might be the desire of his God. After all, there was one empyreal lord presiding over the God's church; Finn, a peregrinus ought to be traveling the world, fishing for souls to be brought to the Rex Regum. For the moment, he was abroad and beside Arvælyn so this was a temporary happy medium.

"I may not sing for my supper any longer, amatus, but I retain the soul of a storyteller. Perhaps someday His Exalted Majesty will once again protect me as he takes me to places otherwise forbidden to men." He was unsure whether he ought to divulge his trip to the platinum dragonflight's homeworld in front of an outsider, even one who might soon be family.

"But yes," he added, more quietly, "you prophesied yourself into being. And now you are more completely yourself."

As Sentinel and royal consort, he noticed but did not comment upon the seal of his Vigilia Magna and mother-in-law. If he were meant to know the contents, he would know the contents.

Once again, he glanced at Arvælyn before taking the lead in responding.

"I, for one, have thousands of questions on matters philosophical, religious, and the like, but I will try to ask them at a more staid rate. A conversation rather than an interrogation." He grinned. "Refreshment would not go amiss if we are to make this garden our home for the afternoon." But, of course, he would defer to his prince.

"'Twould be the height of ingratitude to deny you, Your Blazing Highness," he said, with perhaps a bit of a bard's flirtation, though nothing untoward. "With your permission?"

His hand rose, aether twining around tendon and bone, vein and artery. He assumed the puissant prince would be able to infer what he asked. Then he reached into the air and pulled Varvara's artefact from his home to his hands. After the briefest excuses of a tuning--the instrument never seemed to fall out of tune, though sometimes he changed the tuning to his purposes.

A few haunting runs and then he asked Arvælyn a slow question that curled around a conspiratorial little smile.

"If I asked you now,
Will you be my prince?"

Each word throbbed with restrained, but honest emotion, pregnant with myriad meanings only hinted at.

"Will you lay down your armour
And be with me forever?"

He had already asked this in front of their Gods and families, and Arvælyn had already answered, a promise more durable than ironclad, something even a follower of Akrivar would respect. All the same, he asked it with all the vulnerability he had the first time. Everyone in the highborn halls he trod these days wore such emotional and mental armor, mundane and arcane. He rather felt his honesty and vulnerability were strengths.

"I feel real." His falsetto skirled through the branches of the trees, seeking out the hidden corners of the garden. Then it soared. The song and the love were too big for the garden, but the walls didn't shiver and shake and fall down. He declared his love in no uncertain terms, repeated it like a mantra, and eventually, though he plied no magic save what his fingers and voice could achieve, the song came to a close.

There was a story in it, of course, but encoded in melody.

For the moment, though, he refrained from refreshment, not wanting to get anything on those carefully callused fingers lest an encore be asked of him.

A part of Finn disappeared into the music, but another part was more present when he made it than at most any other time. Perhaps that's why it sometimes felt as intimate and vulnerable to command an audience as it did to inhale the hot breath Arvælyn exhaled when they made the beast with two backs. The growing audience bolstered him, fed him, and, he thought, his divine master, as well. He didn't think his God would seek to draw worship from and elder God, but one never knew with Gods.

He acknowledged the wider audience with a smile and a wave, pushed against Arvælyn's kiss, and a hand came up as if to take his due from the Blazing Prince's cheek, but he thought better of it—this was an unfamiliar Pyramid.

"Thank you. It is an honor to share." He held up Varvara's artefact for a moment, "To your earlier point, this is too magical to form a pact with it, but I have often considered binding various instruments with my Reaving Rune. Music can be a weapon." He hadn't yet tested the depths of this boon's power. Perhaps Aværys would send him to the sea elves with Raithen and he could subjugate them with a song, at least those who could still breathe air.

They said whales sang, using the medium of the sea much as he did the air, but he didn't let his mind digress too far.

He would play at the will of the princes here present, and otherwise speak, take refreshment, and the like. Would he be able to enthrall the chronomancers to inform him if not aid him in his quest? Again, he did not ken this Pyramid and had no wish to botch diplomatic efforts, but the invisible crown upon his head sang a siren song.

"May you and Valæra Princeps share a similar bond."

Finn had thought his well-wishing quiet enough that with his back mostly turned to the audience, they wouldn't have heard it, but perhaps he was too used to the safety that Command over the servi gave them in Solunarium. With a slight blanch, he murmured an apology for his misstep. Hopefully nobody would be executed on his behalf. He might have grown accustomed to slavery, but the only person he actively wanted to die was Thalya. He hoped her death wouldn't drive a wedge between him and Vrædyn, let alone the rest of the Luxian royalty, but he too had sworn an oath.

"I do hope diplomatic immunity protects me for drawing a modicum of worship from them," he said with a renewed smile, his fingers plucking out an underscoring for their conversation. "Well, I will play something with more crowd appeal until you send them back about their work. Or His Exalted Highness deigns to sing a duet with me..."

He made a mental note to seek an opportunity to sneak away and play for the servants. Finn too was of humble origins, and it never hurt to have friends among the servants.

The underscoring seemed to shift to something distinct between one heartbeat and the next. Rhythm came from a tapping heel and the occasional percussive beat of his hand against the body of his instrument. While his voice continued to grow, reaching new heights, depths, and abilities, at first he showed off his masterful deftness with the strings. And then, when he did sing, it almost sounded as though other voices were harmonizing with his—magic? Perhaps.

"Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise.
Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies.
And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again.
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain."

Apropos, he thought, of Varvara and Akrivar both, and their chosen were his primary audience so, he sang.

"The chain will keep us together.
Running in the shadow."