Chapterhouse of the Order of Reconciliation
51st of Ash, Year 121
Musical Reference:
Your heart is more than a machine
Pumping blood through your body, doing things you've never seen
Their words come like arrows when they fly
With mechanical precision, they can cut you up inside
The rhetoric was abhorrent, but the money was good. With his studies taking up so much of his time, with his work for Lyra taking up so much of his time, there was less time to perform and sometimes less need to perform. Lyra paid him more than he thought he was worth, both for manning the front desk of Ale'Ephirium when she and her more talented colleagues were busy with things beyond his ken, and for his research in the Archives of the Academy that more and more coincided with his own deep dives into history.
She paid him well and had even floated the idea of him working for her full-time, but he had been obliged to respectfully decline. It hadn't angered her; she was aware that her influence was at least partially responsible for his expanding needs. Finn had become mildly obsessed with the Leh'anafel. He dreamed of sailing to Ecith to present some humble gift to Syren that could never match Her gift: music. And now not only did he need to pay for rent and food, but he had to send money home, wanting his earnings to improve the lot of his family, and wanting to save for a future that might include more travel or require extravagance to play for royalty and the intelligentsia.
There was no also Arry, whose needs from Finn were not financial, but he had to keep pace with Arvalyn. And he wanted to take care of him as well. The years had always seen him as the workhorse, and now was no different. Except now he was playing for enemies of Kalzasi, humored diplomatically as they were.
At least he could try out new material that was different from the overwhelming symphony that Talon Novalys had become.
Talon, he prayed, and left it at that. He offered up the joy of performing, of being a channel for art. He didn't know if that was how the man felt when at his forge or when he was with his lovers, but Finn felt obliged to share what was good in his life with the ascended Shinsei. After all, he had helped him on this path.
Perhaps he courted danger with his love song.
But you're more than bolts
As the City's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine
Glasses tinkled all around him and conversation flowed. The Reconciliators in Kalzasi seemed an urbane bunch. It made sense they would send those whose quiet zealotry might toe the line of diplomacy and prevent the horrors of war.
There was talk of war even down in the Low-City where Finn lived. He hadn't overheard anything here in the Guilded Expanse, but perhaps people were afraid to so close to Zaichaer's toehold in Kalzasi. A part of him wished he could stop playing and just weave through the partygoers to listen. A true bard ought to chronicle the world around them, transmuting facts and public sentiments into art that might be passed down, teaching truth with artful lies.
That was the goal, anyway.
He daren't engage his Rune here among the enemy. It was rumored that Reconciliators were initiated in Cardinal Runes in what seemed to Finn a blatant act of hypocrisy. If the minstrel didn't feel comfortable with his own Kalzasern countryfolk knowing how he had been marked, he certainly didn't want the Zaichaeri delegation marking him in particular as an enemy and person of interest.
In any case, he had to rely on his human intuition to read the crowd.
Touch screen, fingertips, and pretty lights
We go through the portal sideways, see you on the other side
Your flesh, all your skin, and all your bones
Carry all our generations with futures still unknown
Even here, he managed to lose himself in the music. His sense of menace receded and he sang his heart out. From time to time, he wondered if the lyrics were too blatant for the crowd. But he wasn't going to stop mid-song, and it seemed that he was merely background noise for most of them.
Perhaps there were even people in the crowd who needed to hear this song. It was difficult to validate his own work, but rationally, he knew that sometimes it seemed as though a song were reaching out to him particularly, telling him something he needed to know, pointing him in a new direction. It might have been Syren, or it might have been a deeper order of Creation. He was but a simple minstrel and did not know.
Sometimes, he made eye contact with someone in the informal audience. They didn't last long enough to get a bead on them. He had learned to make those little connections to help connect with people listening to him, but he didn't want anyone to think he was staring them down or singing entirely to them.
Even if that was how he had occasionally ended up with company in his bed.
Daughter of the Painted Veil, he prayed, let them know Your gift. Not a religious man, Finn did sometimes feel moved to pray when he was playing. Perhaps that was how his soul worshipped. He assumed most people prayed for Her foresight, but he thought Her compassion was the superior gift. At least, the world needed more of it.
And Talon had once joked that he was one of Her disciples. He hoped it was a joke, anyway. A demigod might know a demigod's business better than a mere mortal.
But you're more than bolts
As the city's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine
After the party ended, he was paid in full. He was fed with what the guests hadn't eaten, sitting among the caterers and wait staff, making small talk about music and classism. Nobody talked about the shadow of war.
It was late when he began to walk home. He rarely stopped in the Guilded Expanse, but he spent enough time in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches that he crossed it frequently. He knew the way home, and he knew the shortcuts. While Kalzasi had its share of pickpockets, he avoided crime by walking with a purpose. People were less likely to trouble a man who looked like he knew what he was doing and where he was going than someone who presented themselves as confused and helpless.
Things might have gone differently on any other day. Since that first dive into the Warrens where he had met Talon and Hyoga, where he had seen Lyra in her power, he had taken to carrying his sword with him. At first, it had been self-soothing after seeing the dangers that slavered beneath their feet. Then it had become a bit of a joke, playing the part of the adventurous itinerant bard rather than a minstrel trying to make it in a metropolis. Certainly, it had probably deterred pickpockets and the like as well given a minstrel was often about when the sky was dark and trouble came calling.
But there were no blades allowed at the Reconciliator event and Finn wasn't much good in a fight without one.
He tried to give them his earnings. It would be a hit to his finances, but he could always make more. That was how he had tried to defuse dangerous disagreements with people of a higher class who attempted mischief against him: give them what they want and get it over with. He almost said "I'm a lover, not a fighter," but comedy wasn't going to save him. He almost laughed, incongruously with the situation, and wondered if the exhilaration of the situation was intoxicating him.
They took his money, but didn't let up.
Finn tried to defend himself with his hands, mostly attempting to mitigate damage. He was outnumbered and unarmed. The best he could hope for was to mitigate damage and look for an opening to flee. He wasn't a warrior and he didn't seek a senseless death in an alleyway, nor to be a martyr.
He did seek to shield his lute. It had some scuffs and scars, but while it was tougher than it looked, it was more fragile than he was. They noticed and they took it from him, smashing it against paving stones.
Eventually, it ended. Dazed, he picked up the pieces of his lute, though there would be no repairing it. He wasn't far from the Crown and Lion, but he stuck to the shadows without making a decision to do so. Grateful that he could climb the back stairs to his garret apartment, he was able to avoid people who knew him, people who might help.
At home, alone, he locked the door and laid down on the floor so he wouldn't stain his bed linens with blood. He had some first aid supplies, but he couldn't bring himself to look in the mirror just yet. Instead, he curled around the wreckage of his lute and his broken hand while tears leaked silently, his emotions escaping in relative silence.
One thing he agreed with them: they couldn't rely on the Gods to save them from every situation. When darkness came, it was a mercy.
But you're more than bolts
As the city's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine.
51st of Ash, Year 121
Musical Reference:
► Show Spoiler
Pumping blood through your body, doing things you've never seen
Their words come like arrows when they fly
With mechanical precision, they can cut you up inside
The rhetoric was abhorrent, but the money was good. With his studies taking up so much of his time, with his work for Lyra taking up so much of his time, there was less time to perform and sometimes less need to perform. Lyra paid him more than he thought he was worth, both for manning the front desk of Ale'Ephirium when she and her more talented colleagues were busy with things beyond his ken, and for his research in the Archives of the Academy that more and more coincided with his own deep dives into history.
She paid him well and had even floated the idea of him working for her full-time, but he had been obliged to respectfully decline. It hadn't angered her; she was aware that her influence was at least partially responsible for his expanding needs. Finn had become mildly obsessed with the Leh'anafel. He dreamed of sailing to Ecith to present some humble gift to Syren that could never match Her gift: music. And now not only did he need to pay for rent and food, but he had to send money home, wanting his earnings to improve the lot of his family, and wanting to save for a future that might include more travel or require extravagance to play for royalty and the intelligentsia.
There was no also Arry, whose needs from Finn were not financial, but he had to keep pace with Arvalyn. And he wanted to take care of him as well. The years had always seen him as the workhorse, and now was no different. Except now he was playing for enemies of Kalzasi, humored diplomatically as they were.
At least he could try out new material that was different from the overwhelming symphony that Talon Novalys had become.
Talon, he prayed, and left it at that. He offered up the joy of performing, of being a channel for art. He didn't know if that was how the man felt when at his forge or when he was with his lovers, but Finn felt obliged to share what was good in his life with the ascended Shinsei. After all, he had helped him on this path.
Perhaps he courted danger with his love song.
But you're more than bolts
As the City's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine
Glasses tinkled all around him and conversation flowed. The Reconciliators in Kalzasi seemed an urbane bunch. It made sense they would send those whose quiet zealotry might toe the line of diplomacy and prevent the horrors of war.
There was talk of war even down in the Low-City where Finn lived. He hadn't overheard anything here in the Guilded Expanse, but perhaps people were afraid to so close to Zaichaer's toehold in Kalzasi. A part of him wished he could stop playing and just weave through the partygoers to listen. A true bard ought to chronicle the world around them, transmuting facts and public sentiments into art that might be passed down, teaching truth with artful lies.
That was the goal, anyway.
He daren't engage his Rune here among the enemy. It was rumored that Reconciliators were initiated in Cardinal Runes in what seemed to Finn a blatant act of hypocrisy. If the minstrel didn't feel comfortable with his own Kalzasern countryfolk knowing how he had been marked, he certainly didn't want the Zaichaeri delegation marking him in particular as an enemy and person of interest.
In any case, he had to rely on his human intuition to read the crowd.
Touch screen, fingertips, and pretty lights
We go through the portal sideways, see you on the other side
Your flesh, all your skin, and all your bones
Carry all our generations with futures still unknown
Even here, he managed to lose himself in the music. His sense of menace receded and he sang his heart out. From time to time, he wondered if the lyrics were too blatant for the crowd. But he wasn't going to stop mid-song, and it seemed that he was merely background noise for most of them.
Perhaps there were even people in the crowd who needed to hear this song. It was difficult to validate his own work, but rationally, he knew that sometimes it seemed as though a song were reaching out to him particularly, telling him something he needed to know, pointing him in a new direction. It might have been Syren, or it might have been a deeper order of Creation. He was but a simple minstrel and did not know.
Sometimes, he made eye contact with someone in the informal audience. They didn't last long enough to get a bead on them. He had learned to make those little connections to help connect with people listening to him, but he didn't want anyone to think he was staring them down or singing entirely to them.
Even if that was how he had occasionally ended up with company in his bed.
Daughter of the Painted Veil, he prayed, let them know Your gift. Not a religious man, Finn did sometimes feel moved to pray when he was playing. Perhaps that was how his soul worshipped. He assumed most people prayed for Her foresight, but he thought Her compassion was the superior gift. At least, the world needed more of it.
And Talon had once joked that he was one of Her disciples. He hoped it was a joke, anyway. A demigod might know a demigod's business better than a mere mortal.
But you're more than bolts
As the city's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine
After the party ended, he was paid in full. He was fed with what the guests hadn't eaten, sitting among the caterers and wait staff, making small talk about music and classism. Nobody talked about the shadow of war.
It was late when he began to walk home. He rarely stopped in the Guilded Expanse, but he spent enough time in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches that he crossed it frequently. He knew the way home, and he knew the shortcuts. While Kalzasi had its share of pickpockets, he avoided crime by walking with a purpose. People were less likely to trouble a man who looked like he knew what he was doing and where he was going than someone who presented themselves as confused and helpless.
Things might have gone differently on any other day. Since that first dive into the Warrens where he had met Talon and Hyoga, where he had seen Lyra in her power, he had taken to carrying his sword with him. At first, it had been self-soothing after seeing the dangers that slavered beneath their feet. Then it had become a bit of a joke, playing the part of the adventurous itinerant bard rather than a minstrel trying to make it in a metropolis. Certainly, it had probably deterred pickpockets and the like as well given a minstrel was often about when the sky was dark and trouble came calling.
But there were no blades allowed at the Reconciliator event and Finn wasn't much good in a fight without one.
He tried to give them his earnings. It would be a hit to his finances, but he could always make more. That was how he had tried to defuse dangerous disagreements with people of a higher class who attempted mischief against him: give them what they want and get it over with. He almost said "I'm a lover, not a fighter," but comedy wasn't going to save him. He almost laughed, incongruously with the situation, and wondered if the exhilaration of the situation was intoxicating him.
They took his money, but didn't let up.
Finn tried to defend himself with his hands, mostly attempting to mitigate damage. He was outnumbered and unarmed. The best he could hope for was to mitigate damage and look for an opening to flee. He wasn't a warrior and he didn't seek a senseless death in an alleyway, nor to be a martyr.
He did seek to shield his lute. It had some scuffs and scars, but while it was tougher than it looked, it was more fragile than he was. They noticed and they took it from him, smashing it against paving stones.
Eventually, it ended. Dazed, he picked up the pieces of his lute, though there would be no repairing it. He wasn't far from the Crown and Lion, but he stuck to the shadows without making a decision to do so. Grateful that he could climb the back stairs to his garret apartment, he was able to avoid people who knew him, people who might help.
At home, alone, he locked the door and laid down on the floor so he wouldn't stain his bed linens with blood. He had some first aid supplies, but he couldn't bring himself to look in the mirror just yet. Instead, he curled around the wreckage of his lute and his broken hand while tears leaked silently, his emotions escaping in relative silence.
One thing he agreed with them: they couldn't rely on the Gods to save them from every situation. When darkness came, it was a mercy.
But you're more than bolts
As the city's more than steel and stone
Soon your heart is going to overflow
Push you back down, you get up again
Clockworks freeze and golems never dream
You're more than a machine.
