The World of Layonara  Forums

Author Topic: Memories in Song  (Read 1019 times)

Acacea

Memories in Song
« on: October 21, 2014, 11:27:43 pm »
At the Arms one autumn evening, the jukebox begins to play an old song; The Gypsy of Leringard greets late-nighters and staff who happen in, and the whirling bright sound of it drifts through frozen streets. The fiddle plays out memories of fiery hair and emerald eyes, and is soon joined by the breathy voice of a dancing flute. Though a familiar tune, and not unloved, it appears to keep being set on this whenever changed... from elsewhere in the inn a pair of pipes echo the flute's part to sing with the gypsy's violin.
 
The following users thanked this post: miltonyorkcastle, Ravemore, RollinsCat, Brutus_Clawfoot

Acacea

A halfling sits among
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2014, 10:26:42 pm »

A halfling sits among scattered pillows behind a screen, having simply found her way to them despite never having seen the room. Her feet are dirty, her hair grown long and matted with tangles, and Moustache would consider her indecent above her threadbare shorts, despite the thick wrap of someone else's magic she's pulled around her shoulders. She is looking at a deck of cards, with the same question on her mind that has followed her since she woke up with Connor and AnnaLee. She doesn't know what to do.

After pausing to play the flute part of her and Kali's song when it comes round again, she finally tosses reason to the wind and places her hand on the deck, thinking of all the readings the gypsy had done for her, or that they'd done together while she was learning. This place was foreign and family to her at the same time, somehow, after the rebuilding, and she still had to drive away the snatches of dissonant memories in music from her mind before quickly flipping out three cards facedown before her.

The first, what was, that has bearing on the rest. She flips it over, and the card is blank but for a word that also serves as its orientation. The half-feral looking little thing smiles at it faintly; they'd never finished painting her deck, and she supposes since she'd never gotten it herself, it hadn't been at the forefront of her mind, before. It read, "Strength," and she'd not decided what to have painted, there.

"Unshakeable spirit. Courage. The power of love. Stuff." A hand gestured, melody half-sung, but even the simple mage-light to see by would not work, still. It was not the first time she'd been alone in this way, but it was a hole in her heart all the same. "Enduring beyond despair. This is what Has Been."

Bells chime together as she smiles a little sadly, reaching for the middle card with only the barest of hesitations before turning it over. Painted, this one: a ship being torn apart in a violent storm, forms being flung off and into the sea. It faces away from her. "Mist. Always violent change. Here, a restriction of ... freedoms, expression, some form of control changing."

She rubs the ring around her finger, drawing on the shadows almost unconsciously now, to grant her sight in darkness. "Something that gave strength, love, endurance through despair and all of those great sounding things in the past, is now in flux." Wasn't it just, though. "Some upheaval that is maybe not being handled all that well." Her mind is sure it would pass. It had, before. She is afraid to think of the alternative. Biting her lip, she just looks down at the remaining card, and then moves as if to stand and abandon the farce, keys jangling together as she shifts, then plopped back down. Flip. She covers her face with her hands.

"Strength. Reversed. An abuse of power. Defeat. Surrender to... to unworthy impulses, an inability to act." She pulls over herself the magic laid into the cloak, a familiar whisper of power like a touch on her skin covering her in dappled shadow. Afraid again, like looking into a void, she shuffles the cards back into the deck, and after hugging herself a moment, finally asks a question aloud, as if expecting the cards to answer. "Should I chase after this?"

Bracelets clink together as she pulls out a single card and looks to it for any start of an answer... then drops it and stands to leave, the rest of the cards abandoned in the pillows for the moment. Strength yet again, once more reversed. Stupid gypsy cards never said what she wanted them to say.

 

 

RollinsCat

"We should have a party!"
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2014, 12:30:13 am »

"We should have a party!" Simple, perfect words. And so they did - a halfling male, a halfing female, an elven male, and a human male descended upon the Leringard Arms like a flurry of...no, a cyclone, a cyclone of halflings, and of music. Tamborines were tapped, along with feet and kegs. Sitters-by on the couch were lured in, slowly, as one tempts woodland creatures with tasty nibbles, right before you ambush them into dancing with you. Or something.

What color is laughter? For the walls were painted that, whatever color that is - he imagines a spectrum, perhaps. And into the midst comes Wind, the Lady of Chimes herself. "What are you doing?" "We're making a party!" Quenton is still looking for glue and paper. One needs these things to make a party, you know. "That must be why I'm here!" And there it was. She sang, her voice perfect yet fuzzy with magical winks and nods, the equivalent of a crooked finger to his ears. He played along, listening, learning, sharing. "Tag!" Bawdy? I'll show you bawdy! 

How contagious is joy? For it spread so quickly that no one was spared. Even the blind woman, under the soothing basso pressure of hundreds of pounds of demon-spawn persuasion, stood to sway in the demon's blue arms. It was the first time he remembered dueting with Wind. He could not put into words how much he loved it. But he could put it into his music, and so he did. "Tag!"

She sang, and played. He played, and sang. And when it was time to see the blind woman (How is she blind? What has happened? Will she tell me if I ask?) home, the halflings accompany - a cyclone of serenade, with him singing and trying to find a house number without his spectacles on.

He doesn't know for sure, of course. But he thinks Ilsare must have smiled on them this night.