Vhalar 40, Arc 720
On the 40th of Vhalar, around the sixteenth break, Devin Thorn, bard, priest of Delroth and medical genius in progress was standing on his living room table. He wasn't standing there because he was trying to fix the lamp that hung from the ceiling. He wasn't trying to get rid of cobwebs, the spiders that produced them, a fly or something similarly nasty either.
And he definitely wasn't painting the ceiling. He hardly ever did such mundane work.
No, he was holding a lute, an archlute that had fourteen courses (which made it comparatively hard to play) in his arms and playing a song.
A musician needed a stage, and since he didn't have a real stage in his house (yet), the table would have to suffice.
At first, he played a comparatively simple song, a children's song that only consisted of a handful of notes in total, in order to warm up before he turned to something more complicated.
It was a song that he had first played more than two arcs prior, the "Song of the Waves". It was a slow and soft and gentle song, about a walk on the beach, in the morning, when the air was still a hint cool which was one of his favourite times of the trial.
His fingers caressed the instrument, almost lovingly, as he played a series of light and breezy notes that were reminiscent of the waves that gently touched the shore before his music abruptly became a hint rougher.
The seagulls that flew above the ocean were croaking.
Devin was often loud and enthusiastic, and he possessed very little in the way of self-restraint sometimes, but as he continued to play his song, he grew calm and relaxed, and everything around him faded into the background and ceased to matter, for a little moment at least.
Music often had that kind of effect on him.
He was a skilled doctor now, and a masterful cosmetologist, and he had even learned to use two swords at the same time (mostly because fighting with two swords at the same time just looked so good), but music had been his first love, and he still returned to it on a regular basis because he just couldn't live without it.
Music (and lying and deceiving, of course) had been his way out of poverty. He had grown up in Lowtown, the worst part of Andaris (which was something that he refused to tell anybody because he was so ashamed of his upbringing - he preferred to pretend that he had been rich and famous all along).
His parents had been poor, their house had been in dire need of repairs, and he had had to wear used clothing most of the time (which he had hated).
Music had enabled him to become more - and dream.
And besides, music, and the song that he was playing now in particular, reminded him of Aidan who had just been a patron at the tavern where he had used to work when he had arrived in Scalvoris, but who had become his roommate and his close friend (and occasionally a bit more).
They had met the evening that he had first played it.
On the 40th of Vhalar, around the sixteenth break, Devin Thorn, bard, priest of Delroth and medical genius in progress was standing on his living room table. He wasn't standing there because he was trying to fix the lamp that hung from the ceiling. He wasn't trying to get rid of cobwebs, the spiders that produced them, a fly or something similarly nasty either.
And he definitely wasn't painting the ceiling. He hardly ever did such mundane work.
No, he was holding a lute, an archlute that had fourteen courses (which made it comparatively hard to play) in his arms and playing a song.
A musician needed a stage, and since he didn't have a real stage in his house (yet), the table would have to suffice.
At first, he played a comparatively simple song, a children's song that only consisted of a handful of notes in total, in order to warm up before he turned to something more complicated.
It was a song that he had first played more than two arcs prior, the "Song of the Waves". It was a slow and soft and gentle song, about a walk on the beach, in the morning, when the air was still a hint cool which was one of his favourite times of the trial.
His fingers caressed the instrument, almost lovingly, as he played a series of light and breezy notes that were reminiscent of the waves that gently touched the shore before his music abruptly became a hint rougher.
The seagulls that flew above the ocean were croaking.
Devin was often loud and enthusiastic, and he possessed very little in the way of self-restraint sometimes, but as he continued to play his song, he grew calm and relaxed, and everything around him faded into the background and ceased to matter, for a little moment at least.
Music often had that kind of effect on him.
He was a skilled doctor now, and a masterful cosmetologist, and he had even learned to use two swords at the same time (mostly because fighting with two swords at the same time just looked so good), but music had been his first love, and he still returned to it on a regular basis because he just couldn't live without it.
Music (and lying and deceiving, of course) had been his way out of poverty. He had grown up in Lowtown, the worst part of Andaris (which was something that he refused to tell anybody because he was so ashamed of his upbringing - he preferred to pretend that he had been rich and famous all along).
His parents had been poor, their house had been in dire need of repairs, and he had had to wear used clothing most of the time (which he had hated).
Music had enabled him to become more - and dream.
And besides, music, and the song that he was playing now in particular, reminded him of Aidan who had just been a patron at the tavern where he had used to work when he had arrived in Scalvoris, but who had become his roommate and his close friend (and occasionally a bit more).
They had met the evening that he had first played it.
