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strangetrip2018-10-27 12:00 am
st_oneswidow) wrote in strangetrip2018-10-27 12:00 am
Entry tags:
[EP] Change and desperation
Being a woman and not a First Daughter, Curnen knew nothing of the men's mysteries of her community. She did not know the words of the Silent Sons, "Silence is more musical than any song." But when Kash disappeared from her life, he who had given her songs back to her... she could think of no better way to mourn. What song was there? He had not been her love, but he had been more than her friend. And her utter fucking joy at not having to keep an eye out for Zahra, at being able to move freely in their small space again, made everything even more confusing. So when out and about, for weeks there had been no singing. No playing. No whistling, no humming, no dancing, not so much as idle tapping on a table. She did not forbid herself to speak, but it was rare, if she wasn't spoken to first.
In public at least. In the privacy of her room she threw herself into a project she had been cobbling for some months now, but this it seemed was the final push she needed to see it through. She told Coby, when she realized she really needed a man's voice for the last piece, but even he was not privy to the whole of the project.
No one would have known until the flyers went up a few days before she planned to do it. "Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation" they promised. Not quite horror stories, but a story hour for the time of year. She had never performed a whole set by herself at the inn before. Kash would have told her to be brave. If it was time. If she was ready. And now, she really thought she was.
Saturday night, Curnen put on her good dress (and still no shoes) and played for the dinner crowd. She didn't expect everyone--or even anyone--to deliberately come and stay through the whole thing. Indeed, she tried not to pay attention to that, the comings and goings of faces. She sang for the audience she had. Between songs she flirted, she charmed, she teased, and she taught, explaining what pieces were and where they had come from.
Beginning with a song that could sound perfectly innocent if not for the unease infused through the arrangement and her voice, Curnen progressed through a series of tragedies and murder ballads. At the seventh and center piece she set her guitar aside and sang unaccompanied, and this was the first admission after a kind. Though she did not think anyone in the audience had the language. She explained neither before nor after what the words meant.
The center of this labyrinth wasn't the heart, though. They proceeded there next. These four songs were chosen not just for their nature, but also because each one them touched on something of Curnen's life--her curse, her losses, her trials. For anyone who had not heard the story from her already there was nothing to make it obvious. But there was something there in the increasing wildness of her eyes, in the edge in her voice. In the way she swapped a guitar for a bodhran when she came to the heart of it.
"I know least one of y'all's impatiently wondering, 'Curnen, honey, what's the worst story you know? Just tell us that and get it over with.' All right." And she told them. And she didn't die in the telling.
The twelfth song was a break, to dispel some of that dark energy. At the thirteenth she had Coby join her on guitar while she drummed, and the two of them passed "The Ballad of Tam Lin" back and forth between them.
She could not say what compelled her toward the end, when she took up the words of the fairy queen in her mouth. By now, she had done a handful of things that no ordinary girl could or should be able to do, but no one had been able to pin down and put a word to what she was. She told them as best she could now, in the way the room went colder, in the way her eyes went black from end to end, in the way her voice crashed like bells and broken glass, in the ghost of glamour wings (for still, still her own eluded her) for just those verses to show the queen's icy rage.
Then she was herself again, and the song ended. Curnen grinned. "Happy Halloween. Tip your waitress." And it took everything in her not to stumble away from the stage. Bliss would have killed her, and Curnen was terrified and defiant all at once, but also lighter for it. She had not said the word 'fairy.' But she had shown them. Maybe they'd be fine. Maybe they'd stone her. Only way to find out was talk to anybody with a thing to say.
In public at least. In the privacy of her room she threw herself into a project she had been cobbling for some months now, but this it seemed was the final push she needed to see it through. She told Coby, when she realized she really needed a man's voice for the last piece, but even he was not privy to the whole of the project.
No one would have known until the flyers went up a few days before she planned to do it. "Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation" they promised. Not quite horror stories, but a story hour for the time of year. She had never performed a whole set by herself at the inn before. Kash would have told her to be brave. If it was time. If she was ready. And now, she really thought she was.
Saturday night, Curnen put on her good dress (and still no shoes) and played for the dinner crowd. She didn't expect everyone--or even anyone--to deliberately come and stay through the whole thing. Indeed, she tried not to pay attention to that, the comings and goings of faces. She sang for the audience she had. Between songs she flirted, she charmed, she teased, and she taught, explaining what pieces were and where they had come from.
Beginning with a song that could sound perfectly innocent if not for the unease infused through the arrangement and her voice, Curnen progressed through a series of tragedies and murder ballads. At the seventh and center piece she set her guitar aside and sang unaccompanied, and this was the first admission after a kind. Though she did not think anyone in the audience had the language. She explained neither before nor after what the words meant.
The center of this labyrinth wasn't the heart, though. They proceeded there next. These four songs were chosen not just for their nature, but also because each one them touched on something of Curnen's life--her curse, her losses, her trials. For anyone who had not heard the story from her already there was nothing to make it obvious. But there was something there in the increasing wildness of her eyes, in the edge in her voice. In the way she swapped a guitar for a bodhran when she came to the heart of it.
"I know least one of y'all's impatiently wondering, 'Curnen, honey, what's the worst story you know? Just tell us that and get it over with.' All right." And she told them. And she didn't die in the telling.
The twelfth song was a break, to dispel some of that dark energy. At the thirteenth she had Coby join her on guitar while she drummed, and the two of them passed "The Ballad of Tam Lin" back and forth between them.
She could not say what compelled her toward the end, when she took up the words of the fairy queen in her mouth. By now, she had done a handful of things that no ordinary girl could or should be able to do, but no one had been able to pin down and put a word to what she was. She told them as best she could now, in the way the room went colder, in the way her eyes went black from end to end, in the way her voice crashed like bells and broken glass, in the ghost of glamour wings (for still, still her own eluded her) for just those verses to show the queen's icy rage.
Then she was herself again, and the song ended. Curnen grinned. "Happy Halloween. Tip your waitress." And it took everything in her not to stumble away from the stage. Bliss would have killed her, and Curnen was terrified and defiant all at once, but also lighter for it. She had not said the word 'fairy.' But she had shown them. Maybe they'd be fine. Maybe they'd stone her. Only way to find out was talk to anybody with a thing to say.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Certainly, Zahra would have said so, but as she was gone and no longer need be a matter of contention between them, Curnen did not mention her. Nor did she think on Pike, who would have said the same. She found herself thinking, strangely, of Keyleth. Although she did not know Keyleth well, she had always been exactly who she was, never more nor less.
In the end, she spoke of none of her friends, not because she could not, but because her own words were good enough. She met Curnen's gaze with her own dark-pink one. "I am sorry for the hurts you have suffered. You are brave to air the wounds so they may begin to heal."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
"And given I don't know how many of them heard what I was actually telling them..." Curnen shrugged and raked a hand back through her dark hair.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
She reached out for Curnen's hand, careful not to scratch her with her claws, and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. "I have no experience with your losses or your wounds, but I love you well enough to listen."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen
"I confess, kochanie, that I did not understand it all, but I believe--" Lillith considered the songs and her reactions to them. "--I believe perhaps your father..." How did she put this? "Tried to sire children on you...?" It was no unheard of among the more demonic of the Tieflings, but she knew it to be taboo.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
At least, the answer definitely was not no.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
She pulled her friend into her arms and hugged her tightly. In truth, she had missed her these past weeks and wanted her company badly. It might be for the worst of reasons, but she took comfort from the embrace. Perhaps losing Zahra and Kash would not mean losing Curnen, too.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
And if for Kash and Zahra, there was no need. Lillith had no illusions about Curnen's feelings about either of them. She'd left her alone much as she assumed Curnen had left her alone. Time for each of them to lick their wounds before they could be civilized, or uncivilized, together.
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Kash had always been Zahra's, but Lillith understood well that the heart did not always work so cleanly.
"Or because you would rather he were here and not me? I wouldn't blame you, if you do fell that way."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
But after months of trying not to look at them or be alone with Zahra as she sanctimoniously sat on her ever-widening ass, Curnen still danced inside knowing the bitch was gone.
"You don't, she didn't, and I don't. No, you ain't a substitute for Kash... but if he were here and you were gone, he wouldn't be one for you, either."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Instead of pressing Curnen to talk about what would only be painful for both of them, Lillith nodded once and then smiled, if a little wanly. "I'm glad. I feared I'd lose you too."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
"No." She shook her head. "You ain't losing me. Not like this."
Re: Lillith x Curnen
She reached out and smoothed down Curnen's hair, then touched her cheek. "Enough of that. Are you well now?"
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen
Re: Lillith x Curnen