001 | i've got bruises with their fingerprints

[cannily]

WHO: Cael Lupei
WHERE: South Village - Inn roof, Schoolhouse Library, Jailhouse and animal pens, the Spring
WHEN: Early and Mid October
OPEN TO: All (See headers for limits)
WARNINGS: As always for Cael, his history involves death, arson, and human sacrifice. Please put thread warnings in comment titles.

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FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

open to two

Appearances and disappearances; copies of copies of copies, with all the memories and all of the little marks of a life lived in the right place. Cael has always wanted information, always wanted stories--and that hasn't changed. But it's an odd thing to puzzle over, into the late hours. It's an odd thing to wonder: as a copy of himself, with no delivered purpose, set loose in a place where no one knows him and none of his old life seems to apply, does he diverge at that point? Is he the same person, with his audience gone, with his revenge had, and swept so far from home by the uncaring sea?

He is the same person enough to do the same things, if not for the same reasons. Music used to be a tool, a way to perform magic, a way to ingratiate himself to a crowd. Now there's just the joy of it. Just the itch of his fingers and the fear of going out of practice.

In the early morning, just after breakfast, he wears down a piece of bees wax on the strings and wooden frames of his instruments, preparing them against wear and the deepening cold. On plenty of afternoons, when the sun shines strong enough to keep him warm, he climbs from his room onto the roof of the Inn, one instrument pulled to his back while he tunes and plays the other. A pity no one's come forward with the skill to accompany on the spare, but plenty have offered new music to learn.

As the afternoon wanes, the odd pull and drone of his wheel fiddle shifts from tunes that might seem familiar but unknown, to something more and more recognizable with practice. They're strange tunes, requiring shorter turns of the wheel, harder stops, but a good way to keep his fingers nimble and improvising across strings and keys.

FOR YOUR REFERENCE

open to two

When music isn't enough to keep his mind off his own past or future, he returns to the books and boards. The schoolhouse has proven full of guides, and he can often be found there with tea and a candle enclosed in a jar or kitchen glass, what he's copied from the Inn's records laid out on a desk while he searches for corresponding reference.

And, next to that pile, references for his references.

It's slow going, trying to match events to the alchemical and natural magic that seems to rule this land, but he tries for a page each day. An event, it's solution. Some of the books gain notes in their margins, references to rituals and magic from home, a lens of his own understanding for when he picks up the book again.

At home he'd conceal his notes, his efforts, but paper seems in short supply, and the privacy his mind prefers seems frowned upon. So he leaves it as open as the records in the odd little tavern beneath his room: books strewn, notes visible, his small, neat handwriting working its way through events and corresponding supplies and jobs to combat reoccurence.

If he can contribute nothing but his quick and far reaching memory, at least he'll have made the effort.

FORM VERSUS FUNCTION

open to two per location

There are a few books he brings with him from the schoolhouse, applicable as they are. Those afforded horses in Glasdant certainly didn't learn from books, and while he hadn't seen many in his lifetime, they certainly hadn't had antlers and such skittish temperament.

For now, he isn't trying to ride the Kirin Peter had helped him rescue from Owen's wire-strung homestead. Books on horses, books on wildlife: he does his best to cross reference the diets of horses and deer, and offer them what they'll eat from the middle circle. The pack of brushes and leather tack hadn't offered any instruction, but he finds it in the library--grooming, the importance of diet and hooves, a love of sweets and salt.

Within the weeks, Brindle and Oughts are getting back to their old shine and then some. Owen hadn't seemed to care for their looks: labeled blankets tossed over against the chill of sundown, a long lead to give them the walk of some grass. From what Cael has learned, he often as not took them back to their home on the plains, and perhaps he'll get there eventually.

For now, he can be found at the communal pens, taking them out of the jailhouse on their leads and tying them to the fence for general care. He brushes their coats, braids their manes and tails, pays what attention he can to their scales. And he talks to them, about everything and nothing. Whispered bits of gossip about the strange people at the Inn, hummed snatches of songs he's trying to learn. If they get used to him, maybe they'll stop kicking him so hard when he flubs the hoof picking.

For those who don't catch him brushing down his new charges and being kicked into the grass, he ends his work with them at the Spring, letting them pass by their home and lick moss from the stones while he soaks his bruises away. He hasn't quite been able to see it well enough to confirm, but from what he's read, it might one day erase his scars as well, and it's easier to relax with skittish animals to spook at an approach.

Comments

[succored]

Ty laughed at that, gently taking the lyre to draw the bow over its strings softly at first, just to get a feel for the sound and the pressure he would have to put on the strings. He had been thinking it would be more like a violin than a guitar, but it seemed like it had purer tone. "I'll do my best not to ruin that streak of yours, then."

He hummed slightly at the question, drawing out a few notes carefully.

"I know how to play the guitar, violin, and piano, but my favorite has always been the guitar."

He paused, glancing up. "What got you interested in playing so many instruments?"

[cannily]

"You've played the piano? The one with keys?" More that simple interest sparks; he looks the man over, trying to reassess the clip of skin under one brow, the keep of his hair, the state of his nails. How much could be this place, how much was before?

If he lets himself think about, and regret, setting the manor ablaze, the piano is on the list. A rare, relatively new instrument, plucking inspiration from the wheel fiddle's keys and the plucking of a harp. He'd heard multiple performers in Geltis claim to be the inspiration, and all seemed to agree it was something to do with an act that involved throwing a heavy pick at a harp, that had never quite gotten off the ground.

How much he believes that, well. The piano at Dane manor had certainly resembled a harp turned on its side and shut in a box, layers of keys set at the front. It had seemed such a powerful voice, waiting for someone to learn to play it.

"I'm a bard; no one instrument can tell every tale."

[succored]

"Yeah, is there another kind?" Ty joked, but since it seemed like the musician was genuinely interested, he continued. "I wasn't too keen to learn it at first. I thought it was for old guys to learn, but I learned to love it. Do you play it?"

Mostly the musician had listed fiddles after all, but perhaps he had just listed those for brevity or for convenience. After all, if he had said 'wheel fiddle' without seeing one.

Experimentally, he started strumming out 'stand by me' to see if he could find the right chords, adjusting occasionally to make it sound more recognizable. It wasn't great, but at least he was pretty sure no one was going to start throwing water out at him, and he paused in his ministrations when the musician spoke again, eyes widening in interest.

"Really? That was one of my dream jobs, when I was younger. What's your favorite story to tell?"

[cannily]

"You had bards in your world," he asks with some interest: the varied reactions to his prior occupation are starting to stack up. Song requests, scoffing references, a dismissal that isn't quite the same as the acolytes of Iris or the mages of the college.

No one quite acts like it's unimportant, as they had--almost like it isn't even real.

This one though, seems genuinely interested. "I don't know that there's a favorite, really. A favorite story, that is. Stories can be so many things--the same one might have many different versions, based on who you're telling it to. My favorite audience is one who knows that, perhaps. One that doesn't need me to appeal to their agenda, and that's hard to find."

[succored]

"A long time ago, but I guess nowadays we would just call them musicians or singers. It's less about telling stories and more about making money." Ty said with a small shrug, because while he was sure a lot of them went into it to talk about things personal to them, or use it to shape or change the course of history, like most things he was sure it boiled down more into how much money could be made.

While some of them were genuinely into their craft, he doubted many would stack up to what this guy was saying. Playing just to play for an audience, just for the simple joy of it. Ty in his youth had dabbled in it slightly, but if he was being honest, it was also partly because he liked the romance of it. Being able to woo someone he was into with a guitar and a song.

That aside, still thrumming thoughtfully on the lyre, he decided, "I don't know if I would qualify as a favorite audience, but I wouldn't mind trying. How about the first story you learned?"

[cannily]

"Oh, believe me, it has always been about making money. Why else would I care what my audience wants?" Really, it had been about staying alive, staying well-liked and relevant, but in Vermidis money had been attached to all three.

"With that in mind, what of an equivalent exchange? My first for your own." A bat of lashes, not quite a wink, just for the fun of it.

"The first I can remember is one my father liked to tell. It was older than our country, something from the deserts and dry mountains of Idoran." One of those tacitly disapproved tales, that Iris punished and the other districts played coy in allowing. "It involves a man of Serran falling for a lady of Vorrena, and how he fashioned a cloak of glass and sky to sneak across the border to see her." His father had liked to tell it while looking at his mother, and she would read the familiar words on his lips, and settle in with a smile.

Funny, how burning the Dane Manor down did nothing for missing them.

Letting the young man's idly plucking fingers guide the tempo and flow of the tale, Cael spun it until the sun found its zenith, and started to sink toward the trees. Winding between description and anecdotal exchange, he built the characters, the stakes; wove the cloak of night and mirrors to make a man invisible; drew them eventually to the romantic conclusion.

"It seems idyllic, but the cloak is something they keep. They manage to find each other, but they have to hide from a world that doesn't want them to be together. A man in Serran will blame her family; a man in Vorrena will blame his. Now that I'm old enough, I think it was just a story to express the secret lives of people on the border, who might not want the wars men start from thrones at the center of their countries."

[succored]

It's certainly not the worst way that Ty had spent a day here, and he was a bit surprised at how enraptured in the story he had gotten. Considering he didn't know this man's world, he was adept at painting the picture of it, sneaking in little facts and clues that came up later as important, but mostly he enjoyed the heart of the story. Of two star crossed lovers who overcame obstacle after obstacle to be together. Call him a soppy romantic at heart, with that heart worn on his sleeve, but he had to clap once it reached its conclusion. It seemed like he certainly knew how to play to his audience.

"Anyone who has been in love could relate to wanting to hide away with just your lover from the ugliness of the world." Ty said slowly, stretching out his arms and legs, which had been sorely forgotten as he had listened to the story.

"But you're certainly very talented. I feel like I know your world a lot better after just that one tale. My first song I learned seems a poor payment in exchange for that."