4th of Zi’da, Arc 720
Soundtrack
Her head lolled to the side as she stuck her tongue out absentmindedly. In her hand was a large mug still filled to the brim with a dark liquid. She raised the mug to her lips and took a generous sip. She felt the liquor sting her esophagus as it slid down her throat and into her awaiting belly. This was her fourth drink, albeit not her last.
Her icy gaze studied the tavern’s occupants. A small woman roughly her age was laughing loudly with her head thrown back. The sound of her laughter was discordant, but not in a way that was dissimilar to the other unharmonious noises that filled the room. Beside her was a lanky man with mousy brown hair. He, too, was laughing, but at what Cierne didn’t know. Probably some joke, she assumed, taking another swig from her now half empty glass.
She had staked out a spot in the corner of the tavern where she sat alone and was unwilling to allow anyone to join her. She was people watching, observing the ebb and flow of a drunken society. It was one of her off nights, but rather than spending it alone in her tent or surrounded by noisy children at Everton’s she was here at the bar nursing an alcoholic beverage seemingly without end.
“Mind if I-“
“No,” she growled to the one who had begun to ask if he could sit next to her at the table she occupied. She needn’t be intimidating to keep her table to herself, not when there were plenty of other places to sit. What would they do, defy her rudely and risk sitting next to a mouthy woman with angry eyes?
He walked away, leaving Cierne thinking the choice he made was a good one. She continued her observations, carelessly staring at anyone and everyone that merged with her line of sight.
One more large swig from her drink and it was empty, much like her heart. It had grown hard and cold over the past few trials. Just how she had come to like it.
Her gaze settled on a tall man with vibrant green eyes. He bore tattoos up and down both arms, one of which was slung over a slender woman with platinum blond hair. Cierne’s gaze met his and for the longest time neither of them looked away.
Cierne noticed how empty his eyes looked. She needn’t be an expert at detection to tell that he wasn’t enjoying himself. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly and he was shuffling his feet anxiously like he had somewhere he needed to be, or there was some place he would rather have been.
He blinked several times and looked away, ending the impromptu staring contest. She gave him one last glance and found that he had removed his arm from around the woman and had now crossed both arms over his chest, sinking into himself like he had been caught guilty of sticking his hand in a cookie jar.
But something made her look back at him yet another time. He was watching her again. And when she reached into the recesses of her mind and extracted a bountiful amount of ether, she saw a unique aura about him.
Several colours danced around his head like flames in a bonfire. Purple, green, and a little red. They reminded Cierne of the shadow puppets Everton would display for the children at the home to keep them entertained.
She continued to focus, though it was difficult given her current state of inebriation. She strained her eyes and continued to watch the colors frolick. One of the swirls of green seemed to consume the rest of the purple, leaving only the green and red to twirl about.
A subtle taste of cinnamon mixed with an unusual bitterness laced her taste buds.
She furthered her reach, but only for a moment given her inexperience. She plucked a feeble string from the mass of emotions that threaded through his mind. Envy. Perhaps that is what the green represented. And anger. Undoubtedly the red.
Her concentration snapped, bringing her back to reality as her vision and therefore her gaze at his aura blurred.
She looked down at the table and then to the empty mug that rested in between her hands.
A soft sound infiltrated her ears then, causing her to raise her head with the intention of locating the source of the noise. Music.
It drifted through the air like the colors she had just witnessed. She could practically see the notes dancing in the space before her. But this was all in her head. She was experiencing some form of hallucination from having drank too much coupled with her recent use of empathy.
The notes circled her head and pranced off her shoulders. She could almost touch them if she tried extending her hand, but she refrained.
Funny, she thought. Didn’t Wyn say something about refrains being used in music composition? She didn’t know, it was merely a hypothesis and one she did not cared to learn more about.
The Naer pushed herself away from the table and stood up, righting herself not without the accompaniment of minor stumbles. She began to walk to the bar with her empty mug in hand.
“Another,” she demanded, slamming the glass on the countertop a little harsher than she realized. “Please,” she added, realizing a little too late that she sounded hostile.
The bartender eyed her warily. It was strange, she thought. This bartender wasn’t one she was familiar with. Perhaps he worked on the days she had off and vice versa.
He dutifully took her mug and refilled it, handing it back to her with a smug smile.
“Having a good night?” He asked with a charm Cierne wished she could mimic.
She chuckled and gazed into his muddy brown eyes. They swam with flecks of gold.
“You could say that,” she replied, taking the mug and downing half of it in one go.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of darkness. While sounding like a contradiction given that darkness is essentially devoid of light and light is what flickers, Cierne preoccupied her attention not with ruminating on the notion, but with glancing at her Spirit of Vice.
“Come here,” she whispered to it and watched as it merged with her body.
“Excuse me?” The bartender asked raising one of his eyebrows in confusion.
Cierne turned to him and smirked, toying with the idea of seduction. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” she slurred, licking her lips in what she hoped was a teasing manner.
The bartender simply laughed. “It sounds like you’ve had quite your fill tonight,” he said, though he made no attempt at cutting her off.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said before making her way back to her empty table.
The crowd had continued to grow like mold on bread. Bustling people danced to the music that surprisingly had not been all in her head.
Once she had sat back down, reclaiming her seat at her lonely table, Cierne threw her head back and closed her eyes. She laughed and laughed, enjoying the sweet sound of the music. It sounded like a string instrument. It was soft and sultry, and rang through the crowd with an upbeat tempo.
At that moment Cierne wished she knew how to play an instrument.
“Is this seat ta-“
“Yes,” she growled, not bothering to glare at the person who had inquired on whether the seat beside her had in fact been taken.
The person scuttled off leaving Cierne to relish once more in the melody that surrounded her with warm arms.
She attempted then to use empathy on herself. She pulled at the thread that held contentment, an emotion tangled deep in the mass of tendrils within her. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again and again, but the alcohol she had consumed was affecting her ability to concentrate and thus her ability to work her magic.
She sighed sorrowfully. The whole reason she had attempted to perform this trick was so that the oncoming depression she felt lingering in the back of her mind would remain where it was. Alcohol was a depressant and if you weren’t in the right frame of mind, it exploited the feelings of sadness to a greater degree than if you were (in the right frame of mind that is.)
“Shh, it’s okay,” she heard someone whisper.
Holy shit, was that her? Was she talking to herself without knowing?
Cierne opened her eyes and surveyed the room a final time. Everyone was having a great time and here she was alone in a room filled with people. Depression was a fickle entity and one that often prevailed over opposing emotions.
She chuckled darkly to herself before pushing away from the table and leaving her now empty mug behind. She strode out of the tavern, a single tear droplet running down her cheek.
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