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bookenders · 5 years ago

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When Your Song is Over and Done: Part 1

This is the second of two giveaway stories awarded as part of my 400 followers celebration (which, admittedly, was a while ago, my bad). I am so ridiculously proud of this story. Thank you all so, so much for your patience while I’ve wrestled this monster into submission.

To make up for my tardiness, I have also made a cover and playlist for each story!

[P.S. See this info post to read about why I’m posting it this way]

[If you wanna skip straight to the story and ignore my lovely rambling and thanks-giving, the first part is under the pictures!]

This story is for @stardustandnightsky-deactivated, who asked me to write about something I loved and music. [Oh, no. If anyone knows them, can you give ‘em a shout and say it’s up? 😕😶]

So I chose Dungeons and Dragons! Which conveniently has a character class that’s all about music! It’s also set in the world I made up for my homebrew D&D5e game before all my players moved to different states. This story takes place after the Big Bad is defeated and the heroes are done fighting.

I hope this provides them with a little bit of inspiration.

Scroll down past the images for part 1 of the story! Since it’s a longer piece, I’m adding a link to it’s own page that has nice big font so your eyes don’t hate you. (Thanks @klywrites for the recommendation, you saved my butt!)

PART 1

WC: ~800

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, #feels

CW: brief mentions of past violence, angst, D&D-typical combat, grief, longing, loneliness, submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known

Link to the playlist

LINK TO THE STORY!

[Part 2 will be posted next Monday, August 5th!]

For mobile users, it can be found below, under the cut:

One month after the Saviors of Vostel rescued the world from certain devastation, the bard Alain bought a house in a small fishing village called Denmore. It was as far as he could get from Mount Spirag and the site of their last stand.

He was one of the great Saviors, the intrepid band of adventurers who managed to scrawl their names in history by banishing the Betrayer once and for all. But Alain took no great pleasure in his earned bragging rights. He was a performer, yes, but his act was over. The curtain had closed and the stage was swept of roses. There was nothing left to do but live.

No one told him that that would be the hardest part.

Denmore was on the eastern coast of Vostel, a few weeks travel from the great Asho Lenora and only a few days out from Lennal’s village in the marshes. He’d sung many a song of the Elven capital in his younger days as a traveling musician. The one about the first queen used to be one of his favorites. Now all of his songs and stories were of the Saviors, his dear friends. No one wanted to hear of old history these days, not when they were living a story bards would sing of for ages to come.

He knew no songs of Denmore, of its rows and rows of docks, of its thatched-roof houses all crumpled together along the cobbled streets, of its people, smiling and happy in the wake of near disaster. Alain was one of those people now, but he hadn’t learned to smile quite so wide, not yet.

His first few weeks in the sleepy fishing village had left the town in a tizzy. One of the heroic Saviors had chosen their town, of all the great places in the world, to settle down in. They never knew it was hardly a choice at all. All Alain had done was pull out his tattered, stained map, the one with the duck drawn in the corner from one of Kelfir’s duller night watch rotations, and traced the furthest distance from that dreaded mountain. There was no other option. He wasn’t made for renown like Gennon, not anymore. He had outlived that stretch of his life. Of course, at first, it was all about the reward, the gold, the number of times local bards shouted his name across tavern brawls. Now, he was just glad he’d been able to keep them together long enough to save the rest. Songs of his new home would come in time.

The beautiful thing about Denmore was its mundanity. Every morning, a few hours before dawn, the fishing boats sailed out to sea in neat lines, little bobbing ducklings floating one by one. Some days, parents took their children to see them off. Breakfast in Denmore was a quiet affair. There were two places where you could find a meal if you didn’t want to cook. One was the tavern, which doubled as an inn whenever a traveler wandered in from the main causeways, and the other a small bakery that looked out over the harbor.

Every day Alain passed through the square and slowed to circle the fountain in the center, skimming his fingers over the water before bidding the statue of the Mistress of Oceans a silent hello. Of course, it looked nothing like her. Her eyes were nowhere near as welcoming as they’d been carved.

The storefront signs were all hand-painted by the owners, each letter swept across the wood by a caring hand. The post rode through once a week, the messenger’s satchel stuffed to bursting with everyone’s mail. Though the riders constantly changed, they always arrived at the same time, like clockwork. Every evening after lessons, the town’s children gathered on the corner outside the bakery to play with shiny marbles, wagering their victories on candy and copper coins. When the bells rang in the evening, ushering the boats back to their docks and the fishermen to their supper, Alain made his way to the tavern to sing his songs and tell his stories, just as he’d always done.

He finally had a routine. It grounded him in a life he was waiting to take root in. Maybe if he wore a rut through the cobbled roads, he wouldn’t feel as though he should move on, even though there was nothing left to move on to. It was a comfortable life he’d made for himself these past weeks. The clamor and excitement over his arrival died down relatively quickly. Now he was simply Alain, or Al, or Lonny, the man who waved the boats goodbye in the mornings and played the lute to the tune of heroes’ songs in the evenings. It suited him just fine.

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