Completed Sing Me A Song Sweet Blade...

[Tazrae]

Timestamp: 5th of Summer, 522 A.V.

Mathias had delivered Sweet Refrain back to her the 2nd day of summer. Tazrae had been busy that day and hadn’t opened the letter that came with the blade. She’d followed Mathias’ suggestion, and sent Sweet Refrain to Tegan for the rest of the season of spring right after he’d gifted the bard the weapon. But Tegan had to leave town, as he always did, and when he left, he had dropped her machete back off to her along with a note. She hadn’t had time to read the note yet, but now… now she did.

Taz walked out of The Protea after all the breakfast and all the lunch fixings were done. It was her time, her quiet time, and she usually spent it back at Garden Beach napping in her Palapa in the shade. She loved it there, with the wind and the sound of the waves. So, it was natural to her to take the trail between The Protea and Garden Beach, a wineskin over her shoulder, and a basket of baked goods at her side. She left the basket on the small table next to the reclining cushion on the palapa, and settled down, legs folded under her, with Sweet Refrain across her lap.

Before she unsheathed the weapon, she unrolled the note.

Dearest Tazrae-

It’s been a pleasure to handle Sweet Refrain for this last season. I am sorry I had to cut my time with her short, but as you know, it is dangerous to the Settlement for me to stay longer than part of a season. As always, I will be back and I hope when I return, I find you happy and healthy and living the life you deserve.

When we first met and played with Philtering, I knew you were special. I knew it because of the way the snakes looked at you, watched you, and listened to you. Your work with the Ixam reaffirmed that for me this Spring. It’s nice to see such variety come to Syka and see how each and every person that comes to live in Syka changes her slightly. It’s the way things should be. The strong should thrive and the weak should fall away.

I wish I could sit down, take your hand, and place Sweet Refrain in it myself. The urgency that drew me away prevented that. But there is much I wish you to know. She is as Voril as they come. She knows her name. She is awake. I suspect she was forged by a Voril Mage because of her material and some of the special characteristics I discovered within her as we were getting to know each other. She has a strong voice, a firm voice, and a temperament as sweet as your own. She is a protector and a fighter for freedom, and she loves a good song. Her voice is like the scent of climbing roses, heady and a little elusive if they bloom higher than hands can reach. I am confident you will hear her and she will bring about your awakening.

There are two things Voril Mages must experience.

The first is an Awakening. Not much is written about Awakenings because they are personal to both Voril Mages and Voril Weapons. Some weapons are just weapons and can never be awoke by a Voril Mage. Some men and women are just mages and can never be Awoke by Voril Weapons. Your weapon woke right up for me. That tells me she has the right stuff to be the extension of a woman who wants very much to be more than she is. That means she is fully capable of waking you.

It is my hope that you will wake for her. Voril Mages only need to awaken once in their lifetimes. But they must wake countless Voril Weapons throughout their lifetimes… both for themselves and for others. If Sweet Refrain wakes you, then you will go on to wake countless other weapons… but only when you’ve grown competent in your art. This is the sacred circle of our art and it is one you must respect fully always.

Sit quietly with her, meditate on yourself, tell her what you want, and what you need. Know the difference. Speak with your heart, your soul, and above that, speak with your song. You will either wake or you will not. If you do not, keep trying.

The second thing you must experience is the Claiming. You do not choose a weapon; a weapon must choose you. When you are Awake and your weapon is Awake, that doesn’t mean you are together. What that means is that you are polite company and working together towards mutual goals. But when you are claimed… fully accepted by your weapon, you will become family. A bit of you will be in your blade. A bit of your blade will be in you. She will fundamentally change you, hone you, harden you like steel becomes when it is first tempered. Don’t fear the changes. Embrace the changes instead.

You have this, Tazrae. I can tell its in your blood. You just have to make it happen.

Your Friend,
Tegan

[Tazrae]

Tazrae took a deep breath, unsheathed the machete, and lay it across her lap. She ran her hands across the weapon, now that she was free of her sheath, and studied her line and form, memorizing what it was she had draped across her lap. She hadn’t spent a great deal of time with the weapon when Mathias had first shown it to her. But she remembered the silver handle gleaming prettily. Tegan had wrapped it in black leather for her but had left the blow holes for its flute-like hilt exposed.

It was long, a combination Machete… What had Gracelin called her? A bush bowie hybrid with a touch of tactical thrown in… yes that was it. Taz traced the lines of the blade, her topline, humming softly, and understood what Gracelin meant. She had a row of teeth, multiple sections like a tactical, but was perfectly weighted even with the overlong hilt and a backbone that was strong.

Taz swore she could hear a faint song from the blade, down deep, in the layers of hearing normal humans that weren’t marked by Rhaus couldn’t hear. It wasn’t a series of sounds she could distinguish from the background noise of the world. The sea breeze tossed her curly locks about, blowing them across her turquoise eyes. Waves crashed, caressing the sand gently before pulling away. Tazrae felt cycles all around herself, circles upon circles, an interconnectedness that the Mulgon had once spoken to her of.

[Tazrae]

Her eyes traveled down the blade, fingered its holes, and inverted it suddenly, letting it lay along her legs as she lifted its handle to her mouth and she blew a singular beautiful note into its hilt.

Even when her lips touched the leather-wrapped mouthpiece, she felt something inside her stir. There was a recognition, a mental handshake she couldn’t have easily put to words despite her bardic tendencies. She played her favorite wood flute song on the weapon’s hilt and the odd thing was, the song did not release into the world. Instead, the hilt seemed to absorb it, pulling the song into itself, housing it. Taz took her time singing, using her Audius to amplify her voice, not as a weapon but as a message and a plea. Then, as Mathias had told her, she lowered it from her lips, gripped the hilt firmly, and extended the blade outwards.

“Sing for me…” She whispered, and the sound spilled from the machete. It echoed across its starry blade and launched out into the world, filling the space between wind gusts with the stored music Tazrae had made moments ago. It was rare she got to hear her songs as she sang them after the fact, instead of only hearing them as she sang them.

Taz had never heard her voice before, not as an outsider standing on the lane. She’d always been in her head has notes spilled out… filling her world with music that was muted. But this sound was not, and for the first time ever Tazrae heard herself as others could hear her voice and she felt like weeping.

“Thank you.” She whispered gratitude both for the blade and whoever had forged it.

Then she returned the blade to her lap, caressed it again, and studied all its nooks and crannies. Once the inspection was over, Tazrae, having been joined by several large and small Ixam – some newly hatched the size of house cats and others as large as riding horses – by the palapa. She didn’t mind the company. She wasn’t trying to hide anything from anyone. But what had Tegan said? Be honest? Yes, but that was not the whole of it.

” Sit quietly with her, meditate on yourself, tell her what you want, and what you need. Know the difference. Speak with your heart, your soul, and above that, speak with your song. You will either wake or you will not. “

The young bard turned Innkeeper turned mage turned warrior laid her hands on the blade, slowly emptied out her mind, and let Tegan’s writing flood her senses. Sit with her. Meditate on herself. Tell her what you want… tell her what you need. Know the difference. Know the difference? Yes… Taz could see now there was a huge difference. Speak. Speak with one’s heart, soul, and song.

[Tazrae]

Before Morwen was lost, Tazrae’s childhood job of being an Innkeeper’s Daughter had to lead her directly into the path of many people. There was a Vantha she knew, much like Gracelin, who had frequently stayed at the Inn while she was visiting her daughter and her daughter’s children who lived in Riverfall. Though Vantha, the woman had been from Syliras. When Tazrae had first met her the woman had caught Tazrae playing her father’s … no her uncle’s mandolin. The woman hadn’t ever talked to her like she was a child. She’d treated her like someone important, like a peer, and when Tazrae had asked some questions about her culture, she’d told her.

The one thing that stuck out was their use of song. They often crafted songs to tell stories of happenings and events. If an accident happened and someone died, someone would craft a song to sing at special gatherings they’d have in the Holds that were like funerals or life celebrations. And that loved one would spend days, weeks even, composing that song that would tell whatever story the song was crafted for… someone’s life or even someone’s tragic death.

They had special names, those songs, and they’d be heard once, sometimes memorized on the spot, and sang again if and when they were needed. Tazrae wasn’t a Snowsong or an Iceglaze, but at that moment there was something utterly Vantha about the blade. It might have been her swirling stars trapped in the metal of her blade or the fact that Gracelin had recognized her somehow and someway.

So Tazrae decided maybe, maybe a song would be appropriate. She had no time to prepare. The time felt right now, not after weeks of composing a song and making it perfect. This would be a spur-of-the-moment song, one that would convey to the blade why she was who she was and why she needed Sweet Refrain.

Taz was quiet for a long time… listening to her own breath slip in and out, relaxing, thinking of who she was. She started to talk about her childhood, about being an Innkeepers daughter, but when her lips opened to sing about that, something darker came out, something deeper.

The bard sang about her family, their twists and turns, and the trials they faced. She sang about the perfect breeding and the power craved and how twin girls were born to a woman who was the leader of one desert tribe yet sired by the leadership of another. She sang of the parting of the infants… who would grow to be adults and never hold each other's hands like they had in the womb. She cried the tears on that sea voyage that carried her away to Riverfall where she lived a lie well into her twenties.

She sang about the servitude under her aunt and uncle… and the pain between her and her aunt. She sang of the love between her and her uncle. She sang about their deaths and the loosening of yokes and about a captain that ferried a young woman across the sea to her freedom. She sang about a loan and building an Inn and learning to be an incredible cook. She sang about her love of the jungle and roaming free in it. Each time the topic changed; the song changed. The song of Tazrae’s birth and the separation from her sister was vastly different than the song of the grown woman roaming the jungle and falling in love with every square inch of it.

She held nothing back. Tazrae sang of her strengths and weaknesses, of her crippling fear and her abandonment fears. She sang of her vulnerability and her steadfast devotion to the idea of Syka. She left nothing out as she sang, sharing her time with Marino as a first best friend, of Randal taking her everywhere in the jungle and showing her how men should really be. She sang of discovering the magic and being inducted into Reimancy and her relationship with Duncan. She wove Bree and Creature's stories into the fabric of the tale, leaving nothing out. She sang of her wish that brought the bird's voices in Syka.

[Tazrae]

She sang of her faith, in Rhaus and Caiyha and even Kihala. She sang of meeting Alric at The Outpost and her love for him. She sang of the multitude of threads between them, history coiling and ready to strike, and dark figures chasing both of them for very different reasons. She sang of her growing magic and her needs, both fulfilled and unfulfilled. And then she sang about Sweet Refrain and how much she wanted her in her life, wanted acceptance, and wanted the weapon’s voice to ring in her ears.

At that point, her song changed again. It spoke of her dedication to Syka, her willingness to protect it, her coming vows as a full-time Ranger, and how much the Settlement had given her already. Tazrae phrased the song in a way that the Settlement was owed from her a debt that could never be repaid because of how much it meant to her life and how formative the Settlement had become for her. She sang of each of the people of Syka she knew, of what it was to be forgotten for a season, and how much it meant to her to be remembered now.

As she sang, pouring more and more of her heart into the song, the song became something living and breathing. It was nothing short of her identity and her history poured into one moment… as if she’d manifested her chavi here in the mortal realm and turned it into music for a length of masterfully crafted metal to hear. And that was the thing. She wanted the machete to know her, to understand her, and for her to be as important to the weapon as the weapon was to herself.

Under the music, over the song, the blade across her lap stirred. There was no voice, no linking of minds, no thunderstruck moment of comprehension. Instead… that faint far-off background song that Tazrae couldn’t hear the words to or truly pick out the beat from the background noise all around them manifested clear and melodious in her reality.

The weapon connected to her opened to her, and then, in that instance, it sang its song back to her. The machete poured her history into Tazrae’s mind in almost the same fashion Tazrae had sung to the blade. In a heartbeat, between one breath and the next, the music poured out of the blade flooding her senses and she was aware… fully aware… of Sweet Refrain’s history, who made her, why, and the journey she’d been on so far.

Tazrae would have staggered had she been standing. Instead, laying back on her fainting couch, she took it all in as her whole body awoke, became receptive, and let the Vorilescence pour into her, coiling around her heart and soul. Her touch on the blade was different and familiar, and she sobbed a moment before sitting up and bending down to kiss the blade in her lap right where the maker's mark on the steel was engraved.

“Thank you….” She whispered, curling up around the naked blade with her own lithe body and letting her eyes drift closed. She felt cleansed, wiped from the taint of being a Benshira raised away from her desert, away from her family, and expected to become one of them. And with all the other things that felt burned out of her and cleansed, the last and probably most important factor was… she didn’t feel alone anymore.

Not really.

With her hand on the blade, she knew she was not alone. The machete Claimed her completely. Just as Tegan had predicted. Sweet Refrain didn’t talk to her, didn’t sing to her, but she could feel the solid connection and the curiosity of the blade having absorbed all of her story and having more questions, more curiosity… but there was no hurry... so sense of urgency to know all there was to know. They would have plenty of time... the course of thier lifetime in fact... to learn each other.

Words: 2939

[Tazrae]

Grading

Tazrae -

Vorilesence +5, Meditation +4, Rhetoric +1, Songcraft +2, Singing +3

Vorilescence: The Two Things Voril Mages Must Experience – Awakening/Waking Weapons & Claiming, Vorilescence: Mages Awaken Once, Wake Countless Weapons, Vorilescence: Some Weapons Are Just Weapons And Can Never Be Awoke, Vorilescence: Some Men/Women Can Never Awake, Vorilescence: Mages Can Only Awake When Competent In A Weapon, Vorilescence: To Awaken – Meditate, Express Wants/Needs, Desires, Vorilescence: Claiming Happens Via The Weapon, Not The Mage, Vorilescence: Weapon Always Chooses, Vorilescence: Voril Mages & Voril Weapons Only Polite Company Unless The Weapon Chooses, Sweet Refrain: Appearance & Mannerism, Sweet Refrain: A Bush Bowie Hybrid Machete W/A Touch Of Tactical Machete Design, Sweet Refrain: Sound Of Her Song, Sweet Refrain: Stores Music In Her Hilt, Sweet Refrain: Using “Sing For Me” As A Trigger, Songcraft: Composing A Personal Anthem, Meditation: Studying A Weapon As A Way Of Meditating, Meditation: Singing From The Soul, Vorilescence: Opening Up Oneself To A Voril Blade, Vorilescence: A Voril Blade Singing Its History To Tazrae, Vorilescence: Being Claimed