(no subject)
Maple Walnut #15. Music to My Ears
with Hot Fudge, Whipped Cream, and Malt
Story : knights
Rating : G
Timeframe : 1248
Word Count : 2056
Malt Prompt : Truth or Dare - from Ichthus - Have Kairn take Sethan (and possibly himself) by surprise by being better at something than him. (sorry, didn't go for the bonus points)
So, this is utter fluff, just for the fun of it. And it's all Olram's fault. She thought Kairn needed a hobby. I think it will have to make later appearances as well now.
Osier’s was like a whole little world of its own, packed into four ill-measured stone walls. Or perhaps, more of a dumping ground for a half dozen quite real and mismatched realms, Sethan thought as he wove his way between a pair of dressmaker’s mannequins cocooned in Imperial silk and a set of shelves littered with time pieces, hand mirrors and assorted cutlery in varying degrees of sheen and sharpness.
It seemed nothing was off limits to the man’s inventory, from ancient relics to the latest fashion accessories. Though Sethan suspected it was Berwyk that kept the place in business single handedly with his constant purchase of the never ending supply of pigments and implements, enabling its owner to the flights of fancy and hopes of a quick silver or two that filled the place with all manner of trash.
He shuffled his basket between hands, glass jars full of ink clinking against one another as they slid from one end to the other, and lifted a foot gingerly over the tip of a battered spear that ran from floor to ceiling, its length studded with vicious barbs. Laying the foot back to the floor on the far side, he stooped to examine the rusty blade. The jars slid back across the wicker with a tinkling clatter.
“Kairn.” Never bothering to look, Sethan swung the basket behind his back and let it dangle in the air to the side, handle balanced across his palm. It swung for a moment, heavy against his hand, as his eyes slid down the tight curves of the steel. “Kairn?” The hand bobbed in the air, to no avail, and he righted himself and peered over his shoulder into the space behind him, occupied only by the clutter of inanimate odds and ends.
The basket dropped back to Sethan’s hip, and he swung his leg over the weapon and wormed his way through the same junk he’d passed only a moment before. Frowning, he craned and ducked his head, scanning the shadowy recesses of the shop for its only other customer.
He found him by the window, a sheet of well-worn paper stretched between his hands, a scowl of deep concentration on his small face. “Kairn?”
Kairn twitched and looked about, blinking, to find Sethan right before him. “Oh. Sethan. I’m sorry. I was just…” He hastily folded the paper shut and shoved his hands to his sides. “Are you ready then?”
Sethan followed the paper, now pressed to his hip as if that could make it disappear. “What are you looking at?”
Kairn looked down, a slight flush creeping into his cheeks. He shook it open, brought it back in front of him. “I don’t know,” he said, squinting at it again, brows bending, lips twisting. “I mean, it’s like writing of some sort, but they’re not letters, or sigils. They’re these sort of little blobs, and-”
Sethan snatched the top of the page and turned it down to look. “Music.”
“Huh?”
“It’s music.” He prodded the markings. “Those are notes.”
“It was with this.” Kairn motioned behind him, where a guitar rested against the window frame. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Whatever it is.”
Sethan eyed the pockmarked sounding board, the battered neck with grooves worn into the fingerings, the frayed strings, and raised a brow at his friend, who stood there gaping at the thing. “It’s a guitar.”
“A what?”
“A guitar.” He wrapped a hand around the neck and pulled it from the ledge. “You play music with it. Have you never seen one before?”
“Yes, of course.“ Kairn’s look soured. “The orphanage was just crawling with them.”
A moment of silence passed between them, Kairn doing his best to look gloomy and pathetic, Sethan doing his best to ignore it.
“Look,” said Sethan. “Here, you put one hand on the neck, across the strings.” He slid some fingers into the grooves and hoisted the body under the other arm. “And you strum it with the other.”
“Well?” said Kairn, eagerly eyeing the hand poised over the strings.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to show me? I’d like to hear.”
“I don’t know how to actually play. You need to make patterns.” He drummed his fingers along the neck. “Up here. And I think,” he rolled one thick, unraveling string between two fingers, “that it needs to be tuned up first, and I don’t have a clue how to do that.”
“Oh,” said Kairn, softly. He thought about it for a moment as Sethan picked at the frayed bits of string with a nail. “How do you know so much about it if you don’t know how to play?”
Sethan shrugged. “My father had one.”
Kairn said nothing, but he slipped his lower lip between his teeth an scrunched his face up for a moment. Sethan swung the guitar out from under his arm and shoved the thing back against the window frame.
“What are you so all excited about the thing for anyway, if you don’t know how to play one?”
Kairn chewed at his cheeks some more, tossed the sheet music down beside the instrument, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds rather fun, doesn’t it? To be able to make music.”
“I suppose.” Sethan shrugged. “How much is the thing anyway?”
“Four silver.”
“That’s not much.”
“I’ve only got three.”
Sethan clapped him on the back as he headed for the counter. “Maybe it’ll be here next time.”
“Maybe,” said Kairn, still stairing whistfully at the battered instrument.
Sethan made his way down the broad aisle carved through the middle of the junk heap to the counter. The basket met the ledge with the tinkling chime of glass on glass. “Master Osier,” Sethan greeted the portly man stationed behind it.
“Ahh.” A round, much wrinkled face rose from behind the gadget he’d been mending. Sethan eyed the conglamorate of cogs and gears and failed to find a name for the thing. Osier dabbed, with a crumpled and stained handkerchief, at a bit of grease on his brow and offered a toothy smile as he took in Sethan‘s purchase. “You boys find everything you needed?”
With a nod, Sethan shoved the basket across the ledge. “Master Berwyk’s painting supplies.”
“Very good, very good.” He pulled a ledger from under the shelf and scrawled some notes, picking at the tags that hung from a few of the bottles. “Oh,” he said, reaching again beneath the counter to procure a narrow box. “I have those brushes he ordered. Here, I’ll just add those, shall I?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sethan as Osier added the contents of the box to Berwyk’s tab. He peered over his shoulder to find Kairn, still ogling the guitar. Kairn caught the look and hastily turned his attentions to his shoes, scuffing them against one another. “And the guitar.” He dipped his hand into the purse Berwyk had given him, sifting his fingers through the coins. “Over by the window. My friend would like to buy that as well.”
“Oh?” Sethan nodded in Kairn‘s direction. Osier followed the look to where the boy was now making surreptitious glances at the guitar with such longing the thing may as well have been made of candy, and his already beaming face softened a touch further. “Certainly, lad. How much was it again?”
Sethan paused, coins rattling out of his grasp into the pile. “Two silver.”
“Well then,” said Osier, adding another mark to his ledger, “that brings your bill to half a crown.” Sethan sifted through the purse, drew out and counted a dozen bits of silver, and then another dozen. The shopkeeper swept them away with one thick hand. “There you go, lad. You be sure and give your Master my regards.”
Sethan took the basket, with its clinking bottles and rattling box of brushes, from the ledge with a nod. “Thank you, Master Osier.”
He strode past the still dreamy-eyed and sighing Kairn and smacked him across the back. “Don’t forget your guitar.”
Kairn snapped up, looked at him in confusion. “My what?” His eyes darted between Sethan and the guitar. “But…how?”
Sethan shrugged, a hand on the door, and flashed him a grin. “Ink cost a bit more today than last time.”
“It- But-” His face lit up. “Thank you!”
“Just pick it up and come.” Kairn snatched the guitar by the neck as Sethan swung open the door. “You owe me the three silver, you know.”
Sethan paused, spoon mid-swoop, soup drizzling from its end to soflty splatter back into the dish, and stared, one brow cocked, as Kairn came into the dining hall, the guitar bobbing and thumping against his back.
“Do you ever put that thing down?” said Sethan, as Kairn swung the strap over his head and propped the instrument against the table before settling into the chair beside him.
“I have a lesson after lunch.”
Sethan’s spoon clattered into the bowl and he swallowed a laugh. “A lesson?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Kairn snatched the roll from Sethan’s plate and tore it roughly in half. “Lady Evaline is going to teach me how to play.”
Sethan waited for the admission this was a joke, but Kairn’s face showed no signs he was anything but serious. “The Lady is going to teach you how to play?”
Mouth full of bread, Kairn nodded.
“Right,” said Sethan, and he pulled his plate to the side before Kairn could decide to appropriate any more of his lunch.
Kairn picked up the guitar and shoved his chair back so he could pull it into his lap. “She is,” he said. “She got me new strings for it.” He pointed out the shiny new strands wound from neck to sounding board. “She said it’s a shame to see an instrument not taken care of.”
Sethan slowly shook his head.
“She showed me some chords,” Kairn went on. “This one’s called ‘C’.” With a look of intense concentration, he curled a few fingers around the guitar’s neck. He hung his other arm over the body and pulled his hand across the strings. A rich, bright, harmonious sound rose from the instrument, and Kairn grinned so broadly it seemed his face might split.
Sethan cast the fingers splayed over the neck a thoughtful frown. “Let me try,” he said.
“Sure.” Kairn scooped the guitar from his lap and handed it off to him.
Sethan shifted in his seat, aligning the curve of the instrument’s body with his leg, and swung an arm over the top. He brought the other up under the neck, pitched the whole thing back and craned his neck for a better look at the strings, and splayed his fingers over the fingerboard, one stretched, one coiled, one hung off the bottom.
“No, here,” said Kairn, reaching for his hand as he fumbled with the strings. Sethan scowled, but let him pull the finger into place. “Like that. Now you strum.”
Sethan dragged his other hand across the strings and winced. It wasn’t quite the sound Kairn had made.
“It takes practice,” said Kairn. “I’ve been at it all morning.” Sethan pressed the instrument back into Kairn’s hands without a word. “I’m sure you could too. I doubt it would even take you half that long.”
“Nah,” said Sethan. “You have fun with it yourself.”
Kairn had the guitar positioned in his lap now and produced another clear C chord. He adjusted his fingers a bit, curled them along the bottom of the guitar’s neck, and the notes shifted up a bit into another bright harmony. “G,” said Kairn. He rearranged his hand again and the chord took another step higher. “A.”
“Nice.” Sethan poked at his soup.
Kairn grabbed the other half of the roll off his plate and crammed it into his mouth. He announced something that sounded like “F,” but could well have been anything considering the volume of bread it was said around, and strummed another chord.
“You going to get yourself some lunch?” said Sethan.
Kairn gulped down the last of the bread. “Nah,” he said, eyes on his fingers as they worked their way into yet another pattern. “Too excited to eat.”
Sethan eyed his empty plate and gave his soup another poke. “You know,” he said, “you still owe me that last silver.”
with Hot Fudge, Whipped Cream, and Malt
Story : knights
Rating : G
Timeframe : 1248
Word Count : 2056
Malt Prompt : Truth or Dare - from Ichthus - Have Kairn take Sethan (and possibly himself) by surprise by being better at something than him. (sorry, didn't go for the bonus points)
So, this is utter fluff, just for the fun of it. And it's all Olram's fault. She thought Kairn needed a hobby. I think it will have to make later appearances as well now.
Osier’s was like a whole little world of its own, packed into four ill-measured stone walls. Or perhaps, more of a dumping ground for a half dozen quite real and mismatched realms, Sethan thought as he wove his way between a pair of dressmaker’s mannequins cocooned in Imperial silk and a set of shelves littered with time pieces, hand mirrors and assorted cutlery in varying degrees of sheen and sharpness.
It seemed nothing was off limits to the man’s inventory, from ancient relics to the latest fashion accessories. Though Sethan suspected it was Berwyk that kept the place in business single handedly with his constant purchase of the never ending supply of pigments and implements, enabling its owner to the flights of fancy and hopes of a quick silver or two that filled the place with all manner of trash.
He shuffled his basket between hands, glass jars full of ink clinking against one another as they slid from one end to the other, and lifted a foot gingerly over the tip of a battered spear that ran from floor to ceiling, its length studded with vicious barbs. Laying the foot back to the floor on the far side, he stooped to examine the rusty blade. The jars slid back across the wicker with a tinkling clatter.
“Kairn.” Never bothering to look, Sethan swung the basket behind his back and let it dangle in the air to the side, handle balanced across his palm. It swung for a moment, heavy against his hand, as his eyes slid down the tight curves of the steel. “Kairn?” The hand bobbed in the air, to no avail, and he righted himself and peered over his shoulder into the space behind him, occupied only by the clutter of inanimate odds and ends.
The basket dropped back to Sethan’s hip, and he swung his leg over the weapon and wormed his way through the same junk he’d passed only a moment before. Frowning, he craned and ducked his head, scanning the shadowy recesses of the shop for its only other customer.
He found him by the window, a sheet of well-worn paper stretched between his hands, a scowl of deep concentration on his small face. “Kairn?”
Kairn twitched and looked about, blinking, to find Sethan right before him. “Oh. Sethan. I’m sorry. I was just…” He hastily folded the paper shut and shoved his hands to his sides. “Are you ready then?”
Sethan followed the paper, now pressed to his hip as if that could make it disappear. “What are you looking at?”
Kairn looked down, a slight flush creeping into his cheeks. He shook it open, brought it back in front of him. “I don’t know,” he said, squinting at it again, brows bending, lips twisting. “I mean, it’s like writing of some sort, but they’re not letters, or sigils. They’re these sort of little blobs, and-”
Sethan snatched the top of the page and turned it down to look. “Music.”
“Huh?”
“It’s music.” He prodded the markings. “Those are notes.”
“It was with this.” Kairn motioned behind him, where a guitar rested against the window frame. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Whatever it is.”
Sethan eyed the pockmarked sounding board, the battered neck with grooves worn into the fingerings, the frayed strings, and raised a brow at his friend, who stood there gaping at the thing. “It’s a guitar.”
“A what?”
“A guitar.” He wrapped a hand around the neck and pulled it from the ledge. “You play music with it. Have you never seen one before?”
“Yes, of course.“ Kairn’s look soured. “The orphanage was just crawling with them.”
A moment of silence passed between them, Kairn doing his best to look gloomy and pathetic, Sethan doing his best to ignore it.
“Look,” said Sethan. “Here, you put one hand on the neck, across the strings.” He slid some fingers into the grooves and hoisted the body under the other arm. “And you strum it with the other.”
“Well?” said Kairn, eagerly eyeing the hand poised over the strings.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to show me? I’d like to hear.”
“I don’t know how to actually play. You need to make patterns.” He drummed his fingers along the neck. “Up here. And I think,” he rolled one thick, unraveling string between two fingers, “that it needs to be tuned up first, and I don’t have a clue how to do that.”
“Oh,” said Kairn, softly. He thought about it for a moment as Sethan picked at the frayed bits of string with a nail. “How do you know so much about it if you don’t know how to play?”
Sethan shrugged. “My father had one.”
Kairn said nothing, but he slipped his lower lip between his teeth an scrunched his face up for a moment. Sethan swung the guitar out from under his arm and shoved the thing back against the window frame.
“What are you so all excited about the thing for anyway, if you don’t know how to play one?”
Kairn chewed at his cheeks some more, tossed the sheet music down beside the instrument, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds rather fun, doesn’t it? To be able to make music.”
“I suppose.” Sethan shrugged. “How much is the thing anyway?”
“Four silver.”
“That’s not much.”
“I’ve only got three.”
Sethan clapped him on the back as he headed for the counter. “Maybe it’ll be here next time.”
“Maybe,” said Kairn, still stairing whistfully at the battered instrument.
Sethan made his way down the broad aisle carved through the middle of the junk heap to the counter. The basket met the ledge with the tinkling chime of glass on glass. “Master Osier,” Sethan greeted the portly man stationed behind it.
“Ahh.” A round, much wrinkled face rose from behind the gadget he’d been mending. Sethan eyed the conglamorate of cogs and gears and failed to find a name for the thing. Osier dabbed, with a crumpled and stained handkerchief, at a bit of grease on his brow and offered a toothy smile as he took in Sethan‘s purchase. “You boys find everything you needed?”
With a nod, Sethan shoved the basket across the ledge. “Master Berwyk’s painting supplies.”
“Very good, very good.” He pulled a ledger from under the shelf and scrawled some notes, picking at the tags that hung from a few of the bottles. “Oh,” he said, reaching again beneath the counter to procure a narrow box. “I have those brushes he ordered. Here, I’ll just add those, shall I?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sethan as Osier added the contents of the box to Berwyk’s tab. He peered over his shoulder to find Kairn, still ogling the guitar. Kairn caught the look and hastily turned his attentions to his shoes, scuffing them against one another. “And the guitar.” He dipped his hand into the purse Berwyk had given him, sifting his fingers through the coins. “Over by the window. My friend would like to buy that as well.”
“Oh?” Sethan nodded in Kairn‘s direction. Osier followed the look to where the boy was now making surreptitious glances at the guitar with such longing the thing may as well have been made of candy, and his already beaming face softened a touch further. “Certainly, lad. How much was it again?”
Sethan paused, coins rattling out of his grasp into the pile. “Two silver.”
“Well then,” said Osier, adding another mark to his ledger, “that brings your bill to half a crown.” Sethan sifted through the purse, drew out and counted a dozen bits of silver, and then another dozen. The shopkeeper swept them away with one thick hand. “There you go, lad. You be sure and give your Master my regards.”
Sethan took the basket, with its clinking bottles and rattling box of brushes, from the ledge with a nod. “Thank you, Master Osier.”
He strode past the still dreamy-eyed and sighing Kairn and smacked him across the back. “Don’t forget your guitar.”
Kairn snapped up, looked at him in confusion. “My what?” His eyes darted between Sethan and the guitar. “But…how?”
Sethan shrugged, a hand on the door, and flashed him a grin. “Ink cost a bit more today than last time.”
“It- But-” His face lit up. “Thank you!”
“Just pick it up and come.” Kairn snatched the guitar by the neck as Sethan swung open the door. “You owe me the three silver, you know.”
Sethan paused, spoon mid-swoop, soup drizzling from its end to soflty splatter back into the dish, and stared, one brow cocked, as Kairn came into the dining hall, the guitar bobbing and thumping against his back.
“Do you ever put that thing down?” said Sethan, as Kairn swung the strap over his head and propped the instrument against the table before settling into the chair beside him.
“I have a lesson after lunch.”
Sethan’s spoon clattered into the bowl and he swallowed a laugh. “A lesson?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Kairn snatched the roll from Sethan’s plate and tore it roughly in half. “Lady Evaline is going to teach me how to play.”
Sethan waited for the admission this was a joke, but Kairn’s face showed no signs he was anything but serious. “The Lady is going to teach you how to play?”
Mouth full of bread, Kairn nodded.
“Right,” said Sethan, and he pulled his plate to the side before Kairn could decide to appropriate any more of his lunch.
Kairn picked up the guitar and shoved his chair back so he could pull it into his lap. “She is,” he said. “She got me new strings for it.” He pointed out the shiny new strands wound from neck to sounding board. “She said it’s a shame to see an instrument not taken care of.”
Sethan slowly shook his head.
“She showed me some chords,” Kairn went on. “This one’s called ‘C’.” With a look of intense concentration, he curled a few fingers around the guitar’s neck. He hung his other arm over the body and pulled his hand across the strings. A rich, bright, harmonious sound rose from the instrument, and Kairn grinned so broadly it seemed his face might split.
Sethan cast the fingers splayed over the neck a thoughtful frown. “Let me try,” he said.
“Sure.” Kairn scooped the guitar from his lap and handed it off to him.
Sethan shifted in his seat, aligning the curve of the instrument’s body with his leg, and swung an arm over the top. He brought the other up under the neck, pitched the whole thing back and craned his neck for a better look at the strings, and splayed his fingers over the fingerboard, one stretched, one coiled, one hung off the bottom.
“No, here,” said Kairn, reaching for his hand as he fumbled with the strings. Sethan scowled, but let him pull the finger into place. “Like that. Now you strum.”
Sethan dragged his other hand across the strings and winced. It wasn’t quite the sound Kairn had made.
“It takes practice,” said Kairn. “I’ve been at it all morning.” Sethan pressed the instrument back into Kairn’s hands without a word. “I’m sure you could too. I doubt it would even take you half that long.”
“Nah,” said Sethan. “You have fun with it yourself.”
Kairn had the guitar positioned in his lap now and produced another clear C chord. He adjusted his fingers a bit, curled them along the bottom of the guitar’s neck, and the notes shifted up a bit into another bright harmony. “G,” said Kairn. He rearranged his hand again and the chord took another step higher. “A.”
“Nice.” Sethan poked at his soup.
Kairn grabbed the other half of the roll off his plate and crammed it into his mouth. He announced something that sounded like “F,” but could well have been anything considering the volume of bread it was said around, and strummed another chord.
“You going to get yourself some lunch?” said Sethan.
Kairn gulped down the last of the bread. “Nah,” he said, eyes on his fingers as they worked their way into yet another pattern. “Too excited to eat.”
Sethan eyed his empty plate and gave his soup another poke. “You know,” he said, “you still owe me that last silver.”