Completed Women, Velvet and Work

[Chandray]

Continued from Snake's Path On The Rocks and For Jenkins' Sake Timestamp: Not in the PC's storyline anymore (formerly Day 35 of Spring 514 AV) Location: The Velvet Curtain ... and so Chandray would play fiddle in The Velvet Curtain this evening. She hadn’t come there looking for work. She had been trying to find Stefan Teagan again. Her fellow musician and sometimes rapier fencing trainee had disappeared from the city. Although she had been asking around for him everywhere, she hadn’t found anybody who knew where he had gone. This evening she had finally overcome her doubts about visiting the city’s brothel and went to The Velvet Curtain to ask if they knew what had become of the bard. She felt responsible for searching for him. As she thought there was nobody else who would do it, she felt obliged to do it. It was the right thing to do when a friend, however different from her, had disappeared. To Chandray it was important to do the right thing. This was what made the world go round. So should she care what had happened to her brother bard ? The only possible answer was yes. Everything else would be a coward’s answer. And she was no coward. It was the right thing, and she was going to do it. Caring, loyalty and truth was what good people brought to the world. This was what kept her world together. Chandray feared the worst though. Maybe Stefan hadn’t listened to her advice about how it was dangerous to think everything easy and act rashly without thinking first. Maybe he’d paid no heed to how she’d told him caution was essential and his best bet was to stay away from danger. Perhaps he’d went to Coils alone and tried to backstab Rississarajor ... Chandray didn’t want to think of it, but it was impossible to avoid the thought. She hadn't been to Coils yet, but there would come a day ... He had wanted to backstab people. Chandray hadn't liked that. She had told him promises were made to be kept and deals were made to be respected. He hadn't liked that. And though Stefan and Chandray hadn’t parted as enemies, they had parted after a disagreement about what was right and wrong, that evening in the very first beginning of the spring. After this she hadn’t had any good opportunity to speak with Stefan again and then he’d disappeared. A young bard, still new to a city unknown to him, disappeared without a trace ... if she had been asking for a well-established riverian she might have found answers, but as it was, all she’d found was silence. He hadn’t been playing in lots of different places, like Chandray, but he was known in the taverns. When she described his looks, some of the proprietors remembered a man who had been singing lots of happy songs and flirted with the staff. She had been told he’d been seen in the company of a bunch of other young men who behaved exactly the same way. Irresponsible womanizers all of them, drunkards all of them, singing shanties all of them, each one of them looking to lay the whole world. “Well, you know, that kind of group of young men, none of them any better than another, and none of them worse, really... bunch of scoundrels, looking for only three single thing ya know, skirts, skirts and skirts. Like they were in a race and keeping track of how many they managed to catch in order to impress each other. And there sure seemed to be lots of interested skirts around, if you ask me, not that I can understand why a woman would feel interested in being just a tool in that kind of games, when there’s lots of way better men around...” At this point the akalak proprietor of The Blue Bull had given Chandray a gaze that had seemed to imply he considered himself to be one of those better options. This information hadn’t been useful. It wasn’t new to Chandray that Stefan’s lifestyle seemed wild and irresponsible, but in her case she’d had no problems getting him to “stay on the mat”. She’d seen the risks for trouble early, and she’d made him understand her superior skill at the rapier at once. He had seemed to respect her for this and for her competence as musician. Well. The man sure had made a pass or two, in a compulsive way, like it wasn’t possible for him to not do it, no matter how bleak the odds looked or how unwanted the attention might be. But for Chandray Evereene with her easygoing personality it had been easy case to just laugh it away, shrug it off as just a joke and go on. She was a reasonably experienced woman from the Suvan area and had received a great many passes in her life, most of them not asked for. That kind of thing just bounced off of her and came back like a cheery ripost, no more. Fencing, that kind of thing was just like fencing, fencing with words, minding her steps and her focus. It had never occurred to her to take his male over-eagerness to flirt as a personal insult. She simply hadn’t behaved like a silly chick, nor allowed him to even try to court her, or let herself be cornered by somebody who wasn’t dry behind the ears. Because Stefan hadn’t been dry behind his ears, in Chandray’s opinion. She was twentyseven and older than he had been. She had felt in command and Stefan had followed and done like she told him, as she thought of their short friendship. Had ... yes, had. She thought of him in past tense, as it had been impossible to find him, and she had come to the conclusion that he was ... gone. The girls at the Velvet Curtain didn’t know anything at all. But they needed a musician for the evening so she had been offered work if she wanted it. Chandray was a bit conflicted but wound up saying yes. It was already evening and she had no other job. She had the fiddle, and she needed the money. So the girls went to speak with the proprietor about it, while Chandray sat down and waited. Stefan had once suggested that she could come and play music with him at The Curtain. She thought he wouldn’t have minded that she would do it now, even if he wasn’t there anymore. She would play alone. And in worst case, if her worst fears were true, to his memory.

[Chandray]

While she waited, Chandray looked around in the room. She found it lavishly decorated in extreme, exaggerated in way that contradicted the elegance and gave an impression of lots of money spent on flamboyant but somewhat grotesque taste. A grotesque beauty. Perhaps others found it elegant. But Chandray thought of it her own way. She could see every visitor immediately be greeted by a woman to escort him to a table. To her it looked just like they were quickly grabbed by raptors striking down on them, in order to make sure to keep them there and get their money. She saw that some of them were at once introduced to a woman who joined them at the table, seemingly a personal hostess for the night, while others were left to themselves. The women were weaving back and forth among the tables, taking orders and returning with drinks from the bartender area in a back corner of the room. And there were also a number of muscled akalaks who looked like guards. Couches and tables populated the rest of the room, with very high backed chairs that made it hard to see the visitors once they had taken a seat at a table. Many side doors and darkened mirrors surrounded the room discreetly. And everywhere she could see the women, the “girls”. The variety in species, looks and style seemed unlimited, and all of them were wearing pretty clothes which made the most of their looks. The atmosphere was decadent to say the least. Chandray pondered the fact that this was the place where her bard colleague and sometimes fencing trainee had chosen to live and play. She wondered why. Despite the lavish elegance, this was a market place for human flesh in silk and laces and the beautiful women in their lovely dresses were as easy to get as any item for sale. Her thoughts were interrupted when the proprietor arrived, six-armed and exotic, beautiful like few. She looked proud and wore a gem-encrusted bustier, which added to the exotic impression, as did her pink colored hair. “I’m Silka. You are looking for work? Do you have experience ?” Her tone wasn’t unfriendly, but not friendly either. It was just businesslike and somewhat interested and she gave Chandray a once over like she was measuring the tall busker up. “I was looking for work as a busker” Chandray said. “If you want music tonight. I play fiddle.” “Oh.” There was maybe a slight streak of surprise in Silka’s voice, but her face didn’t reveal anything at all about how she reacted. After a very short pause she started to ask questions about what sort of music Chandray could play. Music could be good for business, or bad for business, she said. Most of their visitors were wealthy akalaks and some of them had a refined taste in music as well as in the company they were looking for in The Velvet Curtain. It was an art and a skill in itself, she said, to be this refined company. This was what the visitors really payed for, at least most of them. A feeling of class. Chandray couldn’t hear it in Silka’s professionally polite voice, but she had a feeling the madam doubted the busker in the simple brown cotton clothes was any refined. If it hadn’t been a bit late to look for work somewhere else, and if she hadn’t been looking for information about Stefan Teagan, Chandray would maybe have left. It was true that she was out of place, and she was silently wondering how her fellow bard had been thinking that time he had asked her to come and work with him and play fiddle here - maybe had had accepted her just like she was and not thought of how Silka would see her. But Chandray would at least make a try to get work for one evening now when she was here. “I have been working at some very beautiful violin music lately” she said. “Not at all like the simple tunes you can hear in any tavern or on the streets. If you like I can play a sample for you.” “A sample. Yes, that’s a good idea. Let me hear what you can do.” Chandray took the fiddle. First she tuned it, taking care to get everything perfect, as she was now going to play a quite hard piece of music, in order to impress the madam. Then she place the fiddle in the exactly right position and started playing. As usual she used her fingertips to press down on the string and moved the fiddlestick over them in order to create the sound. But playing this music was much more complex than just that. The music was in her mind, like a dream about the melody she wanted to create, and her hearing interacted with the movements of her body and her hands. As all know, who have ever played an instrument beyond novice level, it’s not easy to describe exactly how the more demanding and complex music is created. It’s not just about carrying out simple visible mechanics and do things others can see with their eyes. It’s a lot about feeling and imagination. Chandray did those invisible things a competent creator of music does when she plays. But what Silka could see was just a brown-clad tall busker with long brown hair moving her hands and her body like she was part of the music she played. What Silka could hear was a languishing, romantic, beautiful, sweet tune streaming out. And what she could feel was the feeling of warm, soft, romantic beauty the music inspired her to feel.

[Chandray]

Chandray stopped playing. The sample was done. She looked at the madam and waited for her reaction. Silka sat on a chair nearby and shook her skirt out around her in an artful way. The gems on her bodice glittered. Two hands rested in her lap, demurely clasped. The next two arms rested on the sides of the chair, relaxed. She clasped the third pair of hands coquettishly behind her neck like she was leaning back on them. It looked like she had taken three poses at same time, ranging from shyness, to playfulness, to the elaborate seductiveness of an experienced courtesan. “I liked this” she said after a short silence. “You can play here tonight and I will pay you six gold. But you can’t be dressed like this ... we will need to find better clothes for you. You are taller than most of my staff, but I’m sure we’ll find something for you to wear while you are performing. How does that sound?” To be honest it sounded both good and bad. Chandray hadn’t been prepared for the requirement to wear other clothes than her worn brown cotton pants and shirt. It had never happened before. She looked out over the room and her gaze wandered over the women there. They were all velvet, silk and brocade, soft fur and down, exclusive leathers, ribbons, lace and jewellery. Unlike the normally calm colors of the clothes in Riverfall, the colors of the courtesans’ dresses, bodices, blouses, skirts, tunics and jackets were vivid, and the cuts looked daring. Some of the women had dyed their hair in bright and unnatural colors too, just like Silka. Chandray was full of doubts. But she agreed to the offer and followed Silka through a side door and a short corridor, into a simple room where the bed seemed to be the most important furniture. She sat down on it and waited while the woman went to find clothes she could borrow. It didn’t take long time before Silka entered again, now with a bundle of garments and accessories in her six hands. She had decided against dresses, she said, as it would be harder to find a dress that would fit. Instead Chandray would wear a long skirt and a combination of other garments. Silka asked her to take off the cottons and the boots, like it was a natural thing to undress in front of strangers. Chandray stalled for time by asking about Stefan Teagan and if Silka knew where the bard was. But the madam shook her head. “We haven’t seen him after early spring, day ten or so. But I guess something must have happened to him, because he left the mandolin here, and some attempts at poetry. Not that I want him back the way he has behaved. He just disappeared from work without previous notice. If you know him you can bring the mandolin with you when you leave.” “I truly don’t know if I know him” Chandray said philosophically. “Lately I have been thinking of how little we know about the people we meet. How very little we can see and understand of another person. How many different sides there are to people, some of them easy to like and other sides harder to like.” She made a short pause. Silka was looking at her like she had sprouted horns. Maybe this was far too philosophical for her? Chandray continued anyway.” An easygoing, harmless man of lighthearted jokes, velvet eyed flirt, flowery poetry and cheery songs, can suddenly turn into somebody who looks daggers at you in a dark and shady tavern and speaks about dishonesty and backstabbing like it’s the staples of his life. But this image too can shift and you will see yet another facet of the person, surrounded by beautiful women, at home here, one of the staff. It’s like I have seen a random assortment of shards from a crushed mirror, every shard showing a different face, while the true image of the bard Stefan Teagan remains unknown.” Silka smiled. “You seem to understand more of life and the world than I had assumed. So true. At least with some humans. Many people aren’t constant and coherent. But there’s always also those who are exactly what they seem to be at first sight. Those tend to be very unimaginative though, as imaginative people always are something more than just what meets the eye. And you can never know which kind you are meeting, people who are their surface, or people with depths and many layers. Just when you think you know how somebody is, something totally new to you can show in the person. Like right now. You surprised me. But let’s go on, because the evening has started and I would like you to play. “ Chandray looked at the madam and nodded slowly. The feeling was mutual. Silka had surprised her too. She didn’t want to come off as shy, so she did like she was told, because she thought the madam would despise her if she turned out to be a coward about a minor thing like this. She took off her clothes and boots. Silka shook her head at the busker’s simple and practical underwear. “I can’t even begin to understand how you can pay so little attention to your looks” she said. “And now this underwear too. How are you thinking? How can you wear it? Elegant underwear is as important as all other garments. You will need something better than this, to go with the other clothes.” This seemed to energize the madam. She went to fetch a very thin sleeveless undertunic of cream white silk and lace and made Chandray don it instead of the greybrown cotton undershirt she had been wearing. Then she pulled at the busker and made her stand in front of the big mirror opposite to the bed. “Look. Already a great difference!” She sounded pleased and nearly triumphant. While she spoke she grabbed the striped scarf Chandray always was wearing around her hair and pulled it away. In Chandray’s own opinion she looked just like she used to look, but wearing a beautiful undertunic and with no scarf to keep her hair away from the face. Without comments she donned a long white skirt, a light green tunic with sleeves that were narrow down to the elbows, where they were held together with black bands, then flared out and became very wide and bell shaped from the elbows down to the hands. On top of it she put a medium blue sleeveless velvet overtunic, open in the sides, and gathered it at the waist with a dark golden brown leather belt decorated with black patterns and dark studs of glass. And now she didn’t look just like she used to look anymore. The outfit was beautiful. It was definitely more colorful than anything she had ever been wearing. The lace of the undertunic could actually be seen, she thought, as she pondered the deep cut fronts of the two other tunics. White, under green, under blue ... how came it looked so nice, when it was actually clothes she was borrowing in a brothel, just because she was going to play fiddle? She took the fiddle, but Silka shook her head and made her put the instrument on the bed again. They weren’t ready yet.

[Chandray]

Silka wanted to make braids in Chandray’s hair and tie them together with ribbons the way she had seen some of the staff wearing their hair, in a mix of loose braids, locks and ribbons that looked complicated to achieve. As she had already changed clothes, Chandray agreed and let herself be groomed too. All Silkas six hands started to work at it and it was awesome to watch the procedure in the mirror. When her hair was ready she looked like she could be one of the women working in The Velvet Curtain. One of those on the somewhat more elegant side of things, but one of them. “And you are going to play music on the stage so you also need to put in some effort in what’s called seduction” Silka said. “Seduction?” Chandray laughed. “You mean tricks ? Don’t you find it dishonest to pretend to like somebody just in order to make him give you money? And how would it even be possible to do this when I'm on the stage and playing ?” “Our visitors are wealthy akalaks, mostly. They aren’t simpletons and nobody is cheating them. They are buying pretense. They know they are buying pretense. Where’s the dishonesty in selling it to people who know exactly what they are paying for? And isn’t there terribly many men who are pretending to have true feelings for somebody just to make her give them temporary pleasure ? In my opinion, what’s done openly is honest business. And what’s done as a ruse to cheat somebody is dishonest. I find this pretty clear and simple.” “Seduction” the courtesan said. “Seduction doesn’t even exist. I said what’s called seduction. By people who don’t know too much. ” There was a streak of scorn in her voice now. “Well, so maybe we can skip the so called seduction then” Chandray suggested. “I can just play the music.” Silka shrugged. “Why am I talking with you about this ? You are just a busker I’m hiring for background music. You don’t even know how to dress yourself in a good way, and you seem to know even less about how to be a hostess and entertain guests. This takes much more than just beauty. Beauty is only the beginning. The visitors want to spend their time with somebody who is skilled at creating a refined experience in a professional way. It’s an art. It about creating an experience of so high class that it could make a frog feel transformed to a glorious hero.” Refined. Chandray wondered silently how Stefan Teagan had behaved in this place. Had he managed to blend in, or had this not even been needed, as he had been a man? She didn’t want to ask Silka about it. It was already getting late and Chandray found it best to try to do the job and be paid. It would be a bad idea to speak about things that could be felt as offensive. If Silka said the place was refined and the courtesans were refined hostesses, masters at transforming common frogs to glorious heroes, Chandray wouldn’t question it. At least not aloud. “This is an establishment of high quality” Silka informed Chandray in a somewhat tenser tone like she could read Chandray’s thoughts and had caught her red-handed thinking of frog transformation and actually not finding it so great. “We don’t despise other people here. It’s a question of respect and self-respect. I don’t want my visitors to think we lowered the standards, like we don't find them worth putting in effort for. So I actually demand that you put in effort in what’s called seduction while you perform.” She gave Chandray a long and rather complicated explanation about what this meant in practice. Though essentially it just seemed to be about looking friendly and being attractive. Chandray found it unnecessary to spend much thinking on it, but it seemed like Silka had materials enough for writing a thick book about things like how to push the hair out of your eyes in the exactly right way. It was some of the worst rubbish Chandray had heard. But after all the effort already put into getting this job, she found it easiest to just agree to the crap. “For sure!” she said optimistically and grabbed the fiddle. “I’m ready.”

[Chandray]

Chandray had thought she was ready. But by the time they returned to the big room with all the tables, coaches, doors and mirrors she realized she wasn’t ready at all. The stage at the far end of the room had been empty when they left. But no more. She could see a barely dressed dancer wind her way around the pole set at the center. A series of seats surrounded the stage, and it looked like the visitors sitting there were putting mizas in boxes while they watched. Laviku! She regretted this now. But the deal was already made and promises and deals were made to be kept. She was going to stick to it. There was no chair to sit on. But Silka tossed in a big pillow on the scene floor. It was covered with velvet the color of deep dark red wine. Chandray entered the stage with a sinking feeling. In order to not steal the show from the barely dressed dancer she moved the pillow to a badly illuminated spot at the very back of the scene. She sat down, put the fiddle under her chin, took the fiddlestick, shut her eyes and focused. How had Silka been thinking when she had listened to the music sample Chandray had played for her? How could she have felt it would match - this? The madam must be one of those people who didn’t understand much about music ... Chandray would play the heartrendingly beautiful serenade anyway, as it was a deal. She started to play while she focused her mind on the melody with it’s shifts between sweet romantic joy, melancholic beauty, deeper tones of something else, like a secret dark and powerful dramatic depth, hidden beneath the captivating sweetness of the meandering melody. One moment it was artful and elaborate, elegant, enchanting and seductive, with it’s quick and constant shifts between glittering gaiety as impossilby soft as velvet and as sweet as honey - and bittersweet sadness sharp and dangerous as iron. The only thing other people could see was however that Chandray’s fingers were moving over the strings, pressing them down in a quick series of shifting patterns while she moved the fiddlestick over the instrument. This was something she had practiced over and over again, playing and listening for the exactly right sound until the movements had become something automatic, something she didn’t really know anymore how she was playing, only that she was playing. This is how music is created ... it’s invisible and you can’t see and describe how it happensk, when movement, emotion and hearing becomes one. The musician isn’t outside the music, thinking and observing, she’s inside it, living it, breathing it. The music she played this evening was definitely harder than the simpler tunes she had been playing when she was still a novice. While she played , she moved her hands and fingers and listened simultaneously, immersed in the serenade, more aware of the flow of the lovely and mesmerizingly light yet serious melody than she was of herself. The focus of her mind was total and it was like all she wanted in this world was to play. All was music. The music was all. She sat in the shades at the back of the stage, on the pillow dark red as wine or blood. And as she played and the music streamed out in the room, it was like it came out of her soul and her heart, the way all good music is infused with soul and heart and feeling. It filled her with an emotion of clarity and joy at the sheer beauty of it. It felt to her like the serenade enclosed the whole world and all its beings in its heartfelt affection and forgiveness, and made her belong together with them all. At the end of the serenade she slowly started to pay attention to the surroundings again. The barely dressed dancer had left the scene and a new scantily clad woman had taken her place at the pole in the center of the stage. It was in The Velvet Curtain and the business was going on as usual. While Chandray had played, the girls had performed their tricks just like they used to do, and there was no way to say if the music had made any difference at all. Perhaps it was just “background music”, as Silka had called it. Chandray though of this while she played the last tones and watched the pole dancer: it was far from the alien dignity, grace and power of Rississarajor’s dance in Coils that evening in early spring when she and Stefan had been playing on their strangely tuned instruments. The serenade she’d played tonight was as intricate as the music in Coils Club had been. But the dance wasn’t up to par and no drum was beating. Unknown akalaks sat on their chairs, staring at the woman at the pole and putting gold coins in the boxes. Their attention was fixed only on the poledance.Though the music had felt like the sound of Chandray's soul embracing the world, it had been so only to her, and there was nobody else who had heard it, she thought to herself. The dancer at the pole turned her face Chandray’s way and locked eyes with her. For a moment Chandray saw it there like the woman had said it : I’m dancing, don’t leave me alone here to dance without music and make me look ridiculous and stupid - play! And so Chandray put the fiddle under her chin and started playing again. It was a complicated tune, vivid and rhythmic, but also floating, yearning, dreaming. She played on. There was nothing else she could do. It went on like this for hours, while a long row of dancers passed by. But finally it ended and Chandray could leave the stage. She came out from the shadows where she had been sitting. Normally she would just have jumped down. But as she was wearing the borrowed clothes instead of her own practical brown cottons, she walked to the edge of the stage, intending to step down the small stairs at the side. But before she had time to do it, she was lifted down by an akalak, swiftly and efficiently. She stared at him in surprise. It was ... her little fiddle trainee Novalak’s brother. The man who paid her for being a music teacher. Aristis Mauridis. Or,at a closer look : It didn’t seem to be him. Just an akalak looking very much like him.

[Chandray]

Chandray had heard about the akalaks and how they were two people co-existing in the same body. But she hadn’t been closely acquainted with akalaks and didn’t really know what it was like to have somebody you know suddenly turn into a completely other personality. But now she would find out. She had only met Aristis Mauridis very briefly when she had played at the Almond Blossom and later on at a family gathering. She didn’t know anything more about him than his name and that he was little Novalaks brother. The man’s face was familiar but she found herself unsure if she really had recognized him or if she was just mistaken. She looked into the pale akalak eyes and it felt like she had never seen them before and couldn’t recall meeting him before. It must be a mistake. Chandray took a step back and made a polite apology, aiming to walk away, but the akalak stepped in her way and stopped her. “Yannis Mauridis” he said, like he was answering a question she hadn’t asked. “I thought it was you ... “ “Mister Mauridis”. He had used another first name. He was somebody else. It felt utterly odd and unnatural. It even freaked her out a bit. She didn’t know how to handle it, but the best seemed to be to just be polite. Yannis was a stranger, but she didn’t know Airistis either. She just recognized their common body. “I take it you are the other side of Novalak’s brother ? You must excuse me for asking, I don’t mean to be rude ... I have only heard about this, but never seen it in practice. “ A smile passed over the mans face. It wasn’t a smile she had seen before. She felt a feeling of seeing something unknown, strange and actually a bit eerie. Shapeshifters, like kelvics or the dhani, stayed the same person all the time, in their different physical form. This was odd enough for a human, but it was maybe possible to imagine how it would be. She would be herself, with another body, but still Chandray Evereene. But to imagine somebody else would take over her body and walk around in it and be another person ... she wasn’t able to imagine how this would be. Nor could she imagine how it would be to be herself but in somebody else’s body. If that was how it was ? She wasn’t sure of it. Perhaps they had always been in the same body and both felt it was their’s ? “Are you going to play more, or are you free for tonight? “ Chandray listened to the question and figuratively speaking she felt a social marshland of dark water, quicksand and dark water open in front of her, where it would be utterly important to jump on the right tussocks in order to not be sucked deep down into trouble. Maybe Yannis Mauridis had only asked her if she was going to play again. But maybe he had asked her if she was free for tonight. And maybe he had just asked, or maybe he was asking for the reason people normally asked this in The Velvet Curtain. “I don’t know” she said cautiously. “I only have a busker job for this evening, so I don’t know if I’ll be expected to play more. I was going to ask the proprietor. Silka.” She took a small step to the side in order to give him a subtle hint to move out of her way so she could go and speak with Silka. Yannis Mauridis didn’t seem to be the kind of person who got subtle hints. Or if he got it, he didn’t react. He continued to block her way, and showed no sign of being aware of her wish to leave. “If you are free you could play more. For me. I liked the music. You are talented. We are lucky to have you as music teacher for Novalak. ” It was hard to know if the admiration in his voice and his words was false or true. It didn’t matter. He had made his move and whether he meant what he said or was just flattering her, she would need to answer ... The man had spoken in a low voice and behaved politely, but nevertheless he had cornered her. Chandray wanted to keep the income from teaching the small boy, but now she felt like Yannis Mauridis was expecting something of her, like she was a servant. Yes or no seemed like two equally bad options and most other things she could think of seemed like bad options too. Yannis Mauridis smiled at her again. He put his hand on her shoulder. And the answer came to her : before she knew it she had used the fiddlestick just like she would have used her rapier, if she’d happened to have it in her hand right when this happened. She would have had him at swordpoint, the tip of the sword under his chin. Now it was only the fiddlestick and even if he moved it wouldn’t injure him. But Chandray found herself staring at him along the fiddlestick like it really had been a rapier she held in her hand. “Akajia...” He stepped back, laughing and withdrew his hand. “Have you ever ran somebody through with the fiddlestick miss Evereene? Would you kill me if you found me troublesome?” Chandray thought of how that svefra, Kel Tempest, had asked her if she had ever ran somebody through with the rapier. Had she ever killed somebody, he had wanted to know. And she had said no, she hadn’t, but who could know what she would be able to do, willingly or not, if the pressure was high ... that was what she had thought that evening in The Rathole too, when Stefan Teagan had resorted to speaking about breaking deals and betray and backstab people. Under pressure people can change. And sometimes it brings out unexpected things that were previously unknown. “It would be polite to say I would never kill you mister Mauridis” she said. “And it would be easy for me to say that now, with just a fiddlestick in my hand and you being nice enough to just laugh this off. But it would be a coward’s answer. A hypocrite’s answer. The true answer is that I can’t know." Yannis Mauridis looked back at her. "How could I know?" Chandray continued. "How can any of us know what we would do under pressure ? I have had reason to think of it lately. It’s not so many days since last time I answered this question ... and I said the same thing : I can’t know. If I was attacked and it made me feel pressure hard enough to bring out a killer side I didn’t know I had in me, perhaps I really would kill you, in serious emotional stress, just because you put your hand on my shoulder ?” She lowered the fiddlestick. “I apologize if I have been offensive. But I believe in telling the truth, as far as it’s possible.“ She walked past him and on the other side with the way free she spun around and gave him a smile, as she didn’t want this to derail to becoming his enemy. “And I’m for sure not going to run you through with the fiddlestick mister Mauridis. Thanks for liking the music. But I came here to look for a fellow bard. There’s things of his they have asked me to take care of and there’s also my money to collect.” She turned and walked, hearing his voice behind her. “I don’t mind.” It left her with a feeling of not really understanding what had happened. A confrontation, yes, but odd and unexplained. But she wasn't going to speak more with the akalak. She walked away and found Silka.

[Chandray]

Chandray didn’t look back at the akalak again, she just continued forward through the room. The barely dressed dancers were gone; she hadn’t paid attention and didn’t know where, and the shut doors around the room remained shut. But the people at the tables were still drinking wine and speaking and the hostesses were smiling, some of them seemed to play games of card with the visitors, and other games ... The mirrors on the walls made the room look larger than it was and the number of visitors seemed larger too, as everything was reflected and reflected back, mirror images inside mirror images, creating an illusion of splendor. In the soft light everything looked mysterious and seemed to hold secret promises. As she passed by the mirrors Chandray could see her own image, a tall woman clad in white, green and blue, with an artful cascade of hazelnut brown braids and curls framing her face. Her eyes shone back at her, looking bigger than they normally did, the grey in them enhanced by the silver color Silka had painted on her eyelids while she had groomed the busker for the performance. She looked like she could be one of the courtesans, but she moved with long and resolute strides. The violin was in her left hand, and she still held the fiddlestick like it was a weapon. Silka raised her eyebrows when the busker found her. She had been speaking with an akalak and apologized : she would soon be back, but she had business she must take care of. The two women were off. Chandray followed the madam back to the small room where she had left her things and changed back to her worn brown cotton clothes, without caring that Silka was watching. The clothes were enough, she left the hair as it was, didn’t want to waste time on it. She could comb it out when she was home. Right now she just wanted to leave as soon as possible. It felt good to fasten the weapon belt and feel the rapier at her right hip again. Although she never picked fights for the sake of it she liked it best to be armed. Not that her weapon skills had done her much good when she had needed them, that evening very early in spring. The dhani had easily overpowered her and it was words that had saved them, not swords. She wasn’t able to defend herself against high powered beings like those dhanis, but this wasn’t a reason to be easy prey for simple thugs and small thiefs. She closed her hand around the hilt, but let go if it again and turned to Silka as the woman paid her the gold coins they had agreed on. “You could earn far more. I saw Yannis Mauridis speaking with you. The family is rich.” Silka started speculating in how much the man was worth in gold per year. When she was done with the calculus, she fell silent for a few ticks before she continued. “Would you like to come and play music here again? We had your friend the bard, Stefan, but I don’t think he will come back ... such a flamboyant man, he added to the atmosphere here, though he could sometimes be overbearing too, but nobody is perfect. But you could add to the atmosphere here too. And to the business. There’s a good golden kickback if you would learn to hostess and manage to attract a rich admirer.” Chandray shrugged. She wasn’t interested in the life of the courtesans, with its splendor and its misery. Mostly misery she suspected, and not at all as much splendor and refinement as the madam tried to make it seem to be. “Why don’t you think he’s coming back?” she asked instead of answering the offer. “Did he find a new job somewhere else ? Or did he say he would leave Riverfall ?” Silka shook her head. Her face was serious. “A man doesn’t leave everything he owns behind when he finds a new job, or leaves the city. But he left everything just like he was only going for a walk and we never saw him again. So no ... I don’t think the bard will come back. I’m sorry to say it, but I believe you are searching in vain. And as I said, you can take care of his belongings if you like.” They spoke a bit more and though. Chandray had life experience enough to understand that Silka was likely right, and her search would be to no avail. But she had undertaken it, because it was what a decent friend would do, however short the acquaintance, when somebody went missing in action. Nobody is perfect. She had seen it,that evening in The Rats Hole, that Stefan wanted to act rashly and just rush up to Coils and attack from behind. She had been worried that this reckless side of him would get him into trouble. Maybe it had been his bane. She could only speculate. Silka showed her the things. There had been money, but this was in The Velvet Curtain and the money had been taken care of already, and the madam didn’t mention this. Chandray picked up the things a busker found valuable : The mandolin, and a leatherbound book of where the first pages were full of the bards scribblings - it looked like lots of shanties, but also other things that didn’t look like songs. Poetry and music, music and poetry. The bard had been a scoundrel and a womanizer, but this wasn’t all. Nobody is ever nothing else than meets the eye. Everybody is always something more. Music, she thought, was intangible and invisible like the soul ... yet there. She brought the book and the instrument with her when she left. She knew she wasn’t going back to The Velvet Curtain again. She had come there for a clear purpose, done a job, found a kind of answer she had hoped to not find, and taken care of what she could take care of. The track had ended here and this was all she could do right now. But there would come a day when Chandray Evereene would visit Coils Club again, and speak with the dhani Rississarajor. Yes, there would come a day. Aristis Mauridis caught up with her in the street. He was so sorry for the behavior of his other self. Yannis was however not the one in charge of their body anymore. It was just him, Aristis, the nice older brother of little Novalak Mauridis, her fiddle trainee. See? He was as decent as a man comes. And he was going to make up for Yannis bad form, he was going to see her safely home, he was going to raise the pay for the small boys fiddle lessons. It seemed unstoppable. It seemed impossible to avoid all the massive undoing she was given as compensation for what somebody else had only hinted at. She didn’t object. But she wasn’t listening to what he spoke about as they walked. She thought back on the day and the evening that had passed. She thought about her walk from tavern to tavern, Silka, the room of many mirrors and doors, the hours of music she had played. And it was like it all was a dream she had woken up from and a poetry book and mandolin was all that remained. Continues here OOCThe mandolin and the poetry book has been donated to Stefan's fencing trainer Chandray Evereene, so if you find it reasonable I would like to add them to her belongings.