Legend of Ransera

Posted: **Tue Dec 29, 2020 7:20 pm**

There was a feeling like digging and scrabbling within him somehow. His tutor had told hime time and again that not only should he practice, but he should practice mindfulness, meditating and turning his attention inward because power was, ultimately, greater and more subtle than fireballs and other acts of showmanship. But he was a showman. Well, he aimed to be one, to entertain required more than just skillful fingers.

It felt weird. It felt invasive, but then it was gone and he wasn't sure whether he wanted to run away or into the other man.

His eyes didn't go guarded, but they traced the lines of the man, curious what they would measure.

"Would you like to help me practice, good sir?" he asked. "Until I'm no longer clumsy."

The corner of his mouth twitched, smile-like, but not quite the same. The man was a flirt, and one with connections and power. Finn wasn't a social climber for all that his career would rely upon the goodwill of the wealthy and well connected. But he was finding that as he began his slow slog upward, he was always out of his depth. The only way to know was to experience, and perhaps he could call this one's bluff, at least.

And if he wasn't bluffing, well, that would be all right too.

Posted: **Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:59 pm**

Urs was, much like his family, singularly focused. His father, attached to status and positioning, had secured his own marriage to the daughter of one of the wealthiest merchant families in Kalzasi. His grandmother, obsessed with power, birthed her own soldiers and sold the rest.

He wanted his independence. A Mesmer, relatively unknown and untethered, could be persuaded to persuade. Finn the bard, to his rescue. Armed with a lute and honeyed words, Urs hoped he could be convinced to fight. Or bought. Tricked, even.

But that was steps ahead of now. An unpracticed Mesmer was little more than a distraction, but with his help - well, a distraction could grow in an opportunity. And opportunities were worth their weight in gold. And gold, metaphorical or not, could be used to buy his own freedom.

And, it wasn't like he hadn't been flirting with Finn, before. It wasn't like he wasn't interested. The small part of him that worried for Finn, the nice musician who sang him a song, was squashed by the larger part that wanted out of his family, without sacrificing any of wealth or connections of his own.

And so he continued to smile and tried very hard not to feel guilty about anything. Besides, if things went according to plan, they both would be better off his machinations.

"I think I would like to help you," Urs said, after some time.

Posted: **Tue Dec 29, 2020 9:34 pm**

"My hero!" he declaimed, striking a majestic chord.

Though he was solidly in the present moment, a part of his mind did wander back to earlier, when he was thinking about what he was doing out here in the autumnal air. He recalled, and he thought perhaps it might be nice to share.

"An old teacher of mine," he began, his fingers tricking along the frets and strings of his instrument, "told me that if I wanted my career to be long, not fraught with burnout, but filled with joy, that I ought to make a point of going out and seeking beauty in the world. Experience refills the stores of creativity. Perhaps that is why poets will write an ode about an ancient urn... a beautiful thing inspires them. Perhaps that is why a poet takes a family squabble and alchemizes it into a saga, raising the ordinary out of the mire and into the heavens. I came out for the weather and the sunshine on green things. I didn't expect you, though I daresay you might inspire a poet to song."

If he wasn't bold enough to reach out and caress a stranger's pretty face, his lute murmured of a sudden longing. Perhaps it was only that of the loins and not the soul. Perhaps dividing the two was a logical fallacy. He certainly didn't know.

"Will you come and hear me play tonight or did you want a serenade from outside your window...?"

Posted: **Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:55 pm**

Urs watched as the bard's fingers danced across the strings of his lute. He thought. He imagined. He fantasized.

"Perhaps I already have," Urs said, still watching as Finn plucked the strings, the lute protesting in song. "Perhaps I've already inspired one urn, one poem, and now," his smile twisted into a lopsided smirk, "I want a song. Rule of three, right? Or close enough, I guess," he shrugs, closing his eyes. Urs breathes in, deeply, and stretches his body up towards the sun. There wouldn't be more days like this, not till next year. The leaves would be gone soon, all buried under snow.

Finn struck a chord, lasting, played once and left untouched, the strings vibrating on and on and on.

Urs opened his eyes. A crow flew overhead, black against the blue sky.

"Either would suit me," Urs said, "Or both." He grinned at Finn, the implication apparent. He mused on the music he'd like to hear and what Finn would most likely play. Did bards have preferences? Or were their preferences always what the audience favored?

"Where and when do you play?"

Posted: **Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:14 pm**

"This evening," he began, punctuating with a chord and then stopping like some oh so clever beat poet doing performance art while the artistic intelligentsia nodded along, "I will be performing tavern fare in the Crown and Lion's taproom. 'Tis a fine name for a decent inn, which is more than one can say for many in the Low-City. While you claim to be no lord, I imagine it is not the place your mother would want you going." A chord. "Indeed, she might clutch her pearls." A comic, falling arpeggio.

He grinned. "The beer is cheap. The wine isn't watered. The proprietor is an honest woman, but tastes there are not high brow."

If Urs came and if Urs stayed late and If Urs developed the right rapport, Finn might even invite him to his humble room upstairs and show him what else his clever fingers could do.

"Otherwise, name your address and I will see about a moonlit serenade if you promise to come to your balcony in something scanty." He hummed through a short chord progression. "If you have requests, now is the time to let me know your tastes." In music, of course. Well, if they were flirting, Urs might purposely mistake his meaning. It might be nice if he did mistake his meaning, or read more into it, and take a tumble into Finn's bed with him. It had been a while. There had to be the spark of something there—not budding romance, necessarily, but someone who enjoyed music, witty banter, and such. He wasn't the predatory sort, but he did enjoy hunting willing prey.

Urs seemed to want something. Perhaps he would tell him someday. If nothing came of things, he wouldn't mind trading jests over drinks, even. Too often, he focused more on the music than on the people, and people were a necessary element. Art required an audience, at least to his mind.

Posted: **Fri Jan 01, 2021 11:20 pm**

The Crown and Lion's reputation had reached even Urs, cloistered as he was within the upper echelons of Kalzasi society. A pub caught between two competing brothels on both sides, it was more the location than anything about the tavern itself that earned it infamy. "I bet you'd probably be right in that estimation," he said, a sly smile adding a sharpness to his features, "I won't be asking for her permission, so I don't think it'll be too much of a problem, thankfully."

He idly wondered what sorts of music Finn played at the Crown and Lion and if he played there often. Enough, he supposed, to know that the beer wasn't expensive, the wine lush, and that the proprietor wasn't a raving lunatic. Which, for the Low-City, was a stellar review. "I'll tell you my address, but I can't promise I'll wear anything less than what I'm wearing now," his smile twisting into a smirk, complementing the blush that was blooming from the bridge of his nose.

"What do you know of Adira's Promenade? Or, do you happen to know where to find the Zauber estate?" There, that was it, the secret that would determine if Finn was the type to risk or the type to flee. Either, he didn't know about the Zauber family, or he knew the bare minimum - that in one way or another, all the Zauber kin were promised in one way or another to the city's elite.

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2021 1:10 am**

Finn found himself grinning back like two schoolboys planning a lark at their parents' expense. If his cheeks showed a bit of heightened color as well, he didn't take it amiss. He could play at being the bad boy, though the Gods knew his parents had raised him to be good, even if he was going to be singing in taverns for the foreseeable future. They saw no reason music couldn't be honest work as well, and their son an upstanding citizen.

"Oh, I do believe I have heard the name," he said, though the elite might be surprised how little their intrigues mattered to those below them unless it meant profit or peril. "And... I do think I played at a party where you might have seen me, though I don't think a Zauber paid me." He shrugged. He wasn't so gauche that he was going to try to worm his way into more work through Urs.

"But I can go to the Promenade and ask for directions, I'm sure. Winter's coming, though, so I can't expect you to put on as good as how as you might in the summer. Perhaps my performance will merit a bit of skin..." The melody pulled from the strings of his lute had gone a bit darker, a bit more thrilling, although it was all a lark to him. He teased with words because it was mutually amusing. Whether anything came of it didn't rightly matter to him. Bedding the pretty and the witty was a reward, he supposed, but he wasn't so full of lust that he couldn't take matters into his own hands when animal urges needed sating.

He heard quite a bit of bluster and bravado when it came to conquests of the boudoir from drunken patrons, but he had to wonder how much of it was just poor storytelling. Perhaps he was too critical an audience.

"Well," he continued, "I do hope to see you there, Urs Zauber. I won't forget you now."

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2021 9:25 pm**

Urs studied Finn, looking for anything that could signal recognition. No immediate panic, concern, or worry. Which was good. Which was nice. Easier, this way.

"I'll be there, Finn." He said, offering a quick wave to the bard as he went off to prepare for the evening.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:33 pm**

Name: Finn

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Name: Urs

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Comment: Well that was a nice slice of life thread for Finn and Urs! Seeing the two interact was fun and interesting.

Welp, that's everything I'm sure! If you have any questions, or feel that something actually was missed; please do pm me so we can talk!

Legend of Ransera

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